This course is designed to help you choose the best type of emergency response system (medical alert) for a specific individual.

Background and Prerequisites

Before moving ahead with the main part of the course, please take the lecture that follows this one. In it you will get an introduction to the different types of emergency response systems that exist. This is necessary background to get the most from the rest of the course.

How to use this course

The goal of this course is to help you choose a specific emergency response system that works best for you. To do this, as we go along you will be keeping track of which features do or do not make sense for the older adult who will use this system (you or a friend).

In the lectures, you will learn about specific features, and how to decide whether it makes sense for you. We provide worksheets that are for you to use to keep track of each feature as you move through the course.

At the end of the course, one of the completed worksheets will be your personalized "emergency response system profile".

When you have finished, you can take that completed worksheet, and use it to select the features you need in our online selection tool (free for course participants). It will then show you a short list of actual products that we have researched and which match your profile.

The selection tool then allows you to read the specific research we have done on each of those products. In some cases it will connect you to comparative research we have done to decide which is the "best of breed" within a specific category.

When you find a handful of products that make sense for you, the selection tool gives you links you can use to connect to the manufacturer's websites where you can learn more, and buy if you wish.