Texas Medical Alert – Emergency Alert for Elders at Home - Independent Living Solutions serves Austin,  San Antonio,  Waco,  Marble Falls,  Kerrville, New Braunfels,  Burnet,  Temple,  Killeen and surrounding areas If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Introducing a monitoring system for the connected caregiver. Keeping families connected. If you are working full-time across town or across the country from your aging parent.. we have good news. You can comfortably monitor them while away.

Independent Living Solutions is the Central Texas authorized installing dealer for this ground-breaking new technology.

By partnering with Alarm.com, SafetyCare is able to merge assistive care technology systems to create the nation’s only comprehensive medical monitoring system.

SafetyCare combines the power of the web, including real time alerts and live streaming video with the backing of our 24/7 EMT Response Team in the SafetyCare Response Center.

The strategic alliance between SafetyCare and Alarm.com represents one of the industry’s most innovative uses of “telemedicine” — the use of technology to monitor and care for individuals from a remote location. Here are the remarkable advantages of EMT Link Plus:

 • Independent seniors and disabled individuals can remain in their homes, while family members and care providers can check in on them and provide assistance if needed.

Texas Medical Alert – Emergency Alert for Elders at Home - Independent Living Solutions serves Austin,  San Antonio,  Waco,  Marble Falls,  Kerrville, New Braunfels,  Burnet,  Temple,  Killeen and surrounding areas If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

AMBER offers these solutions

1.  Medication, Health Test, and/or Appointment Reminders with Live Confirmation

2.  Fall Prevention is enhanced by meds being taken on schedule

3.  Inactivity Alerting

4.  Advanced Immediate Fall Alerting (without pendant button being pushed)

5.  Button activated Emergency Alerting

6.  Call Center personnel remain on phone line during any emergency

7.  Up to FOUR other contacts notified by Call Center

8.  Answer phone with pendant and converse “hands free”

9.  Smoke and CO2 Detectors optional

10. Three speed dial buttons available (example: Family Member, Doctor, Home Health Co)

11.  Powerful speaker can be heard all over most residences”

12.  High sensitivity microphone on control panel

Amber is so remarkable because if you cannot call for help…the Visonic Amber System will call for you!

Texas Medical Alert – Emergency Alert for Elders at Home - Independent Living Solutions serves Austin,  San Antonio,  Waco,  Marble Falls,  Kerrville, New Braunfels,  Burnet,  Temple,  Killeen and surrounding areas If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

AMBER Medical Alert Details:

The $50 set-up and registration fee is being waived for the remainder of 2008 to celebrate our new location in Austin, TX.

Amber is so remarkable because if you cannot call for help… the Visonic Amber System will call for you!

“For elderly people who live alone, becoming incapacitated and unable to get help is a common event, which usually marks the end of their ability to live independently.”  NE Journal of Medicine AMBER belongs to a NEW GENERATION of medical alert systems that offer significantly more protection  than the older systems that require a button be pushed before alerting.  Many emergency events render a person incapacitated or unconscious and therefore NOT able to push a button to summon help.

AMBER can be programmed to send an alert in response to “Lack of Activity” as well as by pushing the button on the pendant.  It works on a regular phone line and is not affected by DSL.

• No Risk 30-day In-home Trial
• No Long Commitments
• Lifetime Warranty
• Local Service
• AMBER Service is billed month to month with no cancellation charges.
• AMBER offers two lease plans. One at $26.95 per month and one at $31.95 per month.

The $50 set-up and registration fee is being waived for the remainder of 2008 to celebrate our new location in Austin, TX.

AMBER offers significant advantages over other the 40 plus other brands of Health Alert systems. Allow us to submit a written comparison between AMBER and any other system of your choice.

For more information, or to enroll please call 512.779.4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

26,000 stroke patients are admitted to Canadian hospitals and found there were more adverse outcomes such as death for those treated in “low volume” facilities.

In stroke centers when compared to a community hospital - is a more indepth and higher level of care and most see twice the number of stroke patients as the next hospital. Like anything else, it’s practice, practice, practice. Like any mode of operations, the more you have done it, the better you are going to be at it.

But some in the medical community are skeptical about emergency crews bypassing community hospitals in favor of farther away stroke centers. The controversy comes in when patients who don’t stand to benefit from cutting edge and often experimental care at specialty centers could get quality care at smaller hospitals.

As USA Today reports – It is a very small number of patients who stand to benefit from the stroke centers. It seems that most patients could be just as well served, if not better served, by being cared for at their local community hospital, provided that the local community hospital is doing the right stuff.

Stakes are high. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and the leading cause of disability.

Independent Living Solutions serves Austin,  San Antonio,  Waco,  Marble Falls,  Kerrville, New Braunfels,  Burnet,  Temple,  Killeen and surrounding areas If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Independent Living Solutions serves Austin,  San Antonio,  Waco,  Marble Falls,  Kerrville, New Braunfels,  Burnet,  Temple,  Killeen and surrounding areas If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

AMBER Service provides:

Body Worn ID: Each bracelet/neck pendant for emergencies - hotline to the 24-Hour Emergency Response Center.

Family Notification Service: So you’re not alone in an emergency.

Live 24-Hour Response Center: AMBER Medical Alert will relay key medical facts 24/7 to emergency personnel, so the Member receives faster and safer treatment, and avoids harmful or fatal reactions.

Secure Storage and Online Access: Set-up, review and maintenance of a Member’s Personal Health Record (PHR), which may be securely accessed and updated online, by phone, fax or mail at any time.

Privacy: AMBER never shares or sells Member information.

“Subscribers of medical emergency response systems have fewer hospital admissions and shorter stays after they subscribe. This allows them to live independently longer.”
                                                                                                         New England Journal of Medicine

AMBER is much more flexible and functional; and represents another, higher, level of value altogether. As an Advanced Medical Alert and Health Protection System, Independent Living Solutions AMBER sets the standard by which other systems must be judged. Both in functionality and in value.

Independent Living Solutions - Medical alert system - Austin, Waco, Georgetown, and San Antonio, Texas. We help keep your elder loved ones safe at home. If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

In a recent article by USA Today – it reminds us to help keep our aging loved ones safe when living independently at home. When you find yourself worried at work wondering if your loved is okay at home, check out our solution at Amber medical alert system.

A Houston fire department paramedics a 50 year old man was unable to drive. He was weak and on the left side and unable to speak clearly. He had a stroke. But interestingly, the paramedics did not stop at the first hospital they came to, instead they tell the man that he is going for a ride.

Where did they go? Well, instead of stopping at hospitals closer to his home, the paramedics took him to Memorial Hermann Hospital, one of more than 660 hospitals across the USA that specialize in treating strokes.

As the man was driven past the other hospitals, he became part of a growing trend aimed at improving the quality of medical care for strokes. It seems there is a medical need to pass those hospitals that are closer to ones that specialize in blood clots or bleeding in their brains. This is gaining popularity to deliver the most advanced care as soon as possible. Which makes a lot of sense in many ways.

This stroke treatment model is similar to the one developed years ago to help save the lives of those severely injured in accidents – passing local hospitals to reach one of the 255 U.S. trauma centers.
And some emergency medical services in larger cities take people who are having medical emergencies to the specialty hospitals that focus and are trained in that medical emergency. 

Read the full article on Strokes, Closest Hospital May Not Be Best USA Today

Stroke Risk Plummets With Healthy Lifestyle – Quitting smoking, eating properly and exercising protects your brain, study finds

Women who pursued healthy habits, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol had a 79 percent reduced risk of any stroke, and an 81 percent decreased risk of ischemic stroke.

Men living healthy lives cut their overall risk of stroke by 69 percent and their risk of ischemic stroke by 80 percent. An ischemic stroke is the most common type of stroke, and it occurs when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked.

“We’ve previously found that a low risk lifestyle was very important in preventing coronary heart disease and diabetes, and now we’ve also found that these healthy habits can lower your risk of stroke,” said study author Stephanie Chiuve, a research associate in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The findings are published in the Aug. 26 issue of Circulation.

In the United States, stroke remains the third leading cause of death, and a major cause of permanent disability, according to the study.

Using data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, Chiuve and her colleagues included more than 71,000 women and almost 44,000 men for the new study. The study contained information gathered every two years on smoking status, weight, physician-diagnosed information on high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and the use of medications, including aspirin and vitamin E supplements. Physical activity was assessed with a questionnaire.

Independent Living Solutions is a leading supplier of medical alert systems in Central Texas. We deliver Medical Alert Systems to Central Texas seniors and families who care for them… we help keep your elder loved ones safe a home. If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Independent Living Solutions is a leading supplier of medical alert systems in Central Texas. We deliver Medical Alert Systems to Central Texas seniors and families who care for them… we help keep your elder loved ones safe a home. If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Stroke incidence rates increase steeply with age – the fatality rates are higher and the likelihood of being discharged from the hospital to go home is lower for those over age 80 according to a study in the medical journal Stroke.

A total of 26,676 ischemic stroke patients admitted to 606 hospitals across Canada were included in the study. The subjects were an average of 74 years old, and 10,171 of them (38 percent) were 80 years or older.

The investigators report that stroke fatality at discharge was 5.7 percent among subjects younger than 59 years of age, 8.6 percent among those between the ages of 60 and 69 years, 13.4 percent among those 70 to 79 years old, and 24.2 percent among those 80 years of age and older.

Patients older than 80 years spend more time in the hospital than younger patients did (10 days versus 7 days, respectively), and were less likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (7.7 percent versus 15.3 percent, respectively.

Overall, 47.2 percent of subjects over 80 years of age and 61.6 percent of those younger than 80 years were discharged to their residence

Further analysis, which focused on patients older than 80 years, factors associated with a higher 7-day stroke fatality rate included intensive care unit admission, low socioeconomic status, and admission to a non-academic institution. Similar results were observed for stroke fatality at discharge. 

“Our study should encourage further research to identify potentially remediable factors related to delivery of care to reduce morbidity and mortality in more elderly patients with stroke,” Saposnik and colleagues conclude.

“The recognition of this growing problem may help to implement strategies aimed at involving more elderly subjects in clinical trials and other research, ” they conclude, as well as improving access to specialized stroke care, survival rates and quality of life.” Read full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL26207520080812

SOURCE: Stroke, August 2008.

Independent Living Solutions Your Central Texas Authorized AMBER Source – Call us at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Independent Living Solutions is a leading supplier of medical alert systems in Central Texas. We deliver Medical Alert Systems to Central Texas seniors and families who care for them… we help keep your elder loved ones safe a home. If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.

Outcomes After Stroke

Among stroke patients, the fatality rates are higher and the likelihood of being discharged from the hospital to go home is lower for those over age 80 than for their younger counterparts, according to a study in the medical journal Stroke.

“Stroke incidence rates increase steeply with age,” Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues write. “Therefore, we would also expect a rise in the number of elderly patients with stroke in the future,” they note. “Unfortunately, limited information is available on stroke care in patients over age 80.”

To read the full article go to http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL26207520080812

In a multicenter study, the researchers examined differences in outcomes in Canadians over 80 years of age versus younger patients who were hospitalized for an ischemic stroke over a 1-year period. An ischemic stroke, the most common type, results from a clot that blocks the brain, which prevents the blood from reaching the brain. The oxygen-starved tissue then begins to die.

The danger exists for someone who has taken a fall, especially if they are elderly and alone.

• For the Austin, Georgetown, Waco, and San Antonio elderly who fall and are unable to get up on their own, the period of time spent immobile often affects their health outcome. Muscle cell breakdown starts to occur within 30-60 minutes of compression due to falling. Dehydration, pressure sores, hypothermia, and pneumonia are other complications that may result.

• Getting help after an immobilizing fall improves the chance of survival by 80% and increases the likelihood of a return to independent living.

Patients who fall or collapse at home and remain on the floor for some time before discovery, will be developing a pressure ulcer before hospital admission. Advanced age significantly raises the risk of heart attacks or strokes.

American Heart Association – In the US, someone has a stroke or heart attack every 17 seconds on average.
Each year more women than men have a stroke.

Bathroom
• The bathroom is the room in the home where most falls take place. Problems occur due to difficulties getting in and out of the tub, on and off the toilet, difficulty seeing in dim lighting, slippery or wet surfaces, and dizziness standing at the sink.

If you are concerned about your elderly loved one living alone, contact Alan House at Independent Living Solutions for the best Texas Medical Alert & Emergency Response System in Austin, Georgetown, San Antonio, Temple, Waco, San Antonio. (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.