Meet Grumpy Grandpa | Convincing Your Loved Ones to Get a Medical Alert

We’d like to introduce you to Grumpy Grandpa.

Grumpy Grandpa is a very strong, healthy and independent senior. On top of that, he likes to stay active. He’s the kind of person that’s always done everything by himself. He chops his own wood, changes his own oil, loves to fish and loves the outdoors.

Here’s Grumpy Grandpa’s daughter.

She’s lives in the city and frequently visits her dad on the weekends. Even though he’s healthy and active, the daughter knows that accidents happen and is concerned that if her dad slips and falls, he may not be able to get help quickly.

The daughter knows that the more time a seniors spend on the floor after a fall, the less likely they’ll be able to return to their independent and active lifestyle.

In this video, you’ll see Grumpy Grandpa’s daughter trying to convince him to get a medical alert system. We don’t want to spoil the story so we invite you to watch and see what happens!

I’m sure a lot of you can relate to the above video. It’s not always easy trying to convince your elder parents that you’d like them to have a little added insurance and protection around the home.

A lot of adult children make the mistake of forcing their parents to get a medical alert system. This is probably the worst thing you can do. Remember when our parents tried to teach us things when we were young and even though we knew they were right, we still went against their words just to try and prove them wrong? It’s the same concept here.

Instead of forcing the idea, here are our top 3 tips that, from our experience, have worked for our families and our customers.

• It’s not for you, it’s for me

This is by far the best strategy we can recommend. One of our co-workers simply told his parents that even though he knew that they were healthy and probably would never use the system, the parents should get one just to make him and his siblings feel better knowing that mom and dad had a backup plan.

• Keep it simple

Seniors hate things that are complicated. In fact most people, including me, will never read manuals or buy anything that isn’t easy to use. It’s one of the reasons why Apple sells millions of products each year. Their devices have well thought-out user interfaces and are super easy to use.

Medical alert systems, although they don’t look as good as an iPhone or iPad, are just as easy to use and even easier to install. Tell your parents that all that’s required to install is to plug in a power cable and a phone cord. To call for help, all you have to do is push a button and an operator will come over the speakerphone.

• Cheap insurance

Everyone knows that insurance is expensive. Next to the mortgage/rent, insurance payments are usually the second biggest expense a household incurs each month.

Bay Alarm Medical has medical alarms for as low as $21.95 per month. That’s only 71 cents a day for 24/7 emergency response. In a study done in 2008, the average hospital charge for a patient between the ages of 65-84 was $37,914. When you factor in the costs for medical bills, prescriptions, and other hospital related expenses, 71 cents a day seems like quite a steal.

Conversely, here are our top 3 things you should avoid

• Scaring them

Those “fallen and can’t get up” commercials on TV get a little old (pun intended) over time. Images of seniors lying on the ground or injured aren’t very appealing also. It’s probably not the best idea to use scare tactics on your parents or loved ones.

•  Statistics

As you get older, your chances of falling increase. Everyone knows this and believe me, your elderly loved ones are very well aware of it as well. Don’t remind them. Fall statistics are usually the wrong way to go about trying to convince someone to buy a medical alert system.

• Sending brochures to their house or giving out their contact information – without them knowing.

Believe it or not, we get this a lot and it usually leads to us upsetting people. We don’t like to upset people so please, tell your parents or loved ones to expect that information is going to be sent to them before putting their names on our Request Information form. =)

So there you have it; a list of some do’s and don’ts. Try these out and let us know how they worked for you and your family. If you have any other suggestions, drop us an email! We’d love to hear from you.

Cheers!