Bed Monitors and Bed Sensors

A major concern for many carers is to protect and prevent the risk of falling and / or wandering for those under their care. The elderly and dementia patients are particularly at risk, so being able to give early warning to their carers is proven to reduce the risk of falling and avoid instances of unintentional wandering.

Sensor Pads come in a range of products that offer significant advantages to carers in managing fall prevention and wandering. In all cases, options exist to be able to communicate a potential risk to the carer via various devices such as radio pagers or text. Some of the main features of these products include:

Alarm Mats - Movement Activated Alarms

PIR sensors are able to detect movement. When activated the PIR can connect to a number of different devices to alert both the person and their carers. For instance, a voice reminder can be prompted to immediately play a pre-recorded message from a family member to the person e.g. "stay in bed, I will be there in a minute".

Equally, the PIR can be connected to a paging system which will send an alert to the carer.

The PIR can easily be located in rooms and areas that need to be monitored. This can be to monitor when someone leaves a bed, leaves or enters a room or tries to leave a building.

Sensor Mat / Sensor Pad

Sensor Pads or Sensor Mats are often used as a bed monitor or a chair monitor to track movement of a person. Should someone leave the bed or their chair then sensor pad is able to detect the movement and activate an alarm. The alarm could be to alert a local carer, play a pre-recorded message from a friendly voice or activate a wireless alarm.

Sensor Pads can also be placed under floor mats. These types of sensor mats can be used similar to the above examples, and are also commonly used as a sensor mat under a floor mat located at building and / or room exit points to alert carers when a person is at risk of wandering or falling.

More advanced sensor mat systems to prevent wandering can be connected to an auto-dialler which uses a regular landline to alert up to 6 pre-selected phone numbers. Each number is dialled in turn until an answer is received and the alarm de-activated. The systems are able to differentiate between an answer-phone message and a live response.

If you would like to know more about the many functions and setting available with today’s sensor pads and mats please talk to one of our Indepenedent Living experts who will be happy to offer any advice and answer any questions you have – Call 1890 480 480 or contact us here.