A Bell for Bedridden Patients to Call You at Night

By day you're in the room, or the next one, and you'd hear it if something was wrong. At night there's a wall between you, or a whole floor. A voice that's weak, or gone altogether, won't carry through either, so the person in bed waits until morning.

Someone in r/LifeProTips brought their mother home from a rehab facility unable to speak, after a tracheostomy, and unable to move without help. The question they couldn't get past was that one: at night, how was she going to wake them?

Their dad's answer was a wireless doorbell, and it woke them at half past four the first morning. Their update in the thread: "She rang me twice last night and I don't think I would've slept without it!"

If you look after somebody who can't call out, or can't get up and come to find you, a call bell is a button within reach of their hand that rings where you are. Three things do that job, and they come up again and again in carers' threads: wireless doorbells, caregiver pagers made for the purpose and baby monitors. Which one fits depends on who's pressing it.

The wireless doorbell, the fix you can set up tonight

On ALS Forums the doorbell goes back to at least 2009. A husband whose wife had lost her speech bought a battery-powered one, put the button beside her bed or wheelchair, and carried the ringer round the house with him.

Another husband in that thread has receivers all over the house and on the porch, so a ring is heard wherever he is. His wife had been mute for two and a half years, with a little movement left in her right hand.

She holds a button in that hand while they sleep, for when she needs turning. A second button is stuck beside the toilet with Velcro, because he'd sometimes left her stranded there.

Back in the LifeProTips thread, one family describes the whole set-up for a mother-in-law:

My 94-year old MIL wears the button on a lanyard. The chime is plugged in upstairs, where we usually are. She is unable to stand on her own, so if she needs anything, she just rings the bell.

u/csparker1, in r/LifeProTips

Another family put one by their mother's chair and bed and a second in the bathroom.

A third had once put a doorbell in a teenage son's room so nobody had to shout up the stairs. Years later their mother moved into the same room, they gave her the button, and they could relax knowing she could get help whenever she needed it.

The catch is batteries. The poster's doorbell took three AAs in the chime and a coin cell in the button. The first reply in the thread was a reminder to stock up on the right size.

Rick Rouse, writing at Living (and loving) Life, says a standard wireless doorbell will work just as well as a call button sold for the job. His one condition: press it now and then to check it still rings.

A caregiver pager, which is a doorbell built for this

The pager set is the same idea made for carers: receivers that plug into the wall, and buttons meant to be worn.

In r/eldercare, a commenter bought a set of two buttons, a lanyard and two plug-ins for an elderly aunt. She pushes the button when she needs help, the plug-ins sound like a doorbell, and it works great. The set they named is the CallToU caregiver pager.

Someone else in that thread, whose mother uses one for help in the middle of the night, says the receivers run off the mains and only the buttons take batteries. The range is significant, they add, and the volume adjusts.

They bought two receivers so the button rings in more than one room. The buttons go on a lanyard or stick to the wall, and they use both.

Laura Medcalf, on the assistive-technology blog at Easterseals Crossroads, describes the same kind of dedicated button: a waterproof transmitter, a choice of chime sounds, adjustable volume and a silent light-only mode. It also works with a separate switch, for somebody who can't press a button at all.

For someone who'll wear the button, or who needs one in the bathroom, the pager set is the one to buy.

A baby monitor, for someone who can't press anything

Baby monitors come up in the ALS thread and the eldercare one both. One ALS member says a monitor works well. Another family there used doorbells first, then a video monitor with sound at night in a parent's room.

A monitor is usually one-way, so if the person calls out, you go to them. It picks up sound from further away than you'd think, too.

The limit came from the person who started the eldercare thread. A monitor assumes the person stays in one spot, but their mother moves round the house and out into the yard. Walkie-talkies and plug-in intercoms came up too, for a person who can still talk.

The one who rings it all night

A bell within reach of somebody who's awake, uncomfortable and bored at two in the morning is going to get pressed. The LifeProTips family found that out on day one, when everyone laughed that the carer turned up every single time somebody pushed the button.

Another owner, who thinks they have the same CallToU set, had a harder time of it:

I thought it would be a great solution. However she lays down on it 50 thousand times a night for every little thing. She doesn't push it once and give me time to get up.

u/Money_Palpitation_43, in r/eldercare

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, in their words, and it's loud "even on the lowest setting". The reply underneath took the other side with some glee: loud is the point, because you want to be sure you wake up for the person who's ringing.

On the Alzheimer's Society's forum, a carer's mum goes through spells of ringing the help bell by her bed for no reason, up to ten times a night. Taking it away didn't buy any sleep. She shouted instead, or banged a clock on the bedside table.

Nobody actually rings fifty thousand times a night. It only feels like it from the other side of the wall, and the person ringing isn't doing it to you: they're awake, and you're the thing that helps.

If the person you look after rings for everything, a chime by your bed will have you dreading it, and that's the limit of a call bell. It's for somebody who'll ring when they need you, and taking it off somebody who won't doesn't get you the night back either.

What to check before you order

• Plug-in or batteries. Some doorbell chimes run on batteries and some plug in, like the one upstairs for the mother-in-law. The pager set's receivers plug into a socket, which is what one LifeProTips commenter was asking for. Either way the button has a battery of its own.
• Range. The owners who report back have two floors, a large house with land, or a porch to cover. Buy a set with two receivers rather than trusting one to carry.
• The chime and the volume. One owner's set switches between a doorbell ding-dong and an alarm that will wake the dead, or a carer sleeping downstairs. Another says the lowest setting is still loud. If you share a wall with somebody who isn't on duty, look for a model with a light-only mode.
• A button they can press. The wife on the ALS thread, with a little movement left in one hand, keeps hers in that hand at night. If the button's too hard to press, the Easterseals device takes a separate switch.

It's a bell, not an alarm

Nobody is on the other end of a call bell but you. It doesn't phone anyone, nobody monitors it, and it's silent outside your own walls.

The person whose mother goes out into the yard said it plainly: it's not for emergencies, it's to call them over. A fall when the house is empty is a job for a different product.

Start with the CallToU set: one receiver in the room you sleep in, one where you spend the day, the lanyard button for the bed and a spare stuck up beside the toilet. Set the volume to its lowest before the first night rather than after.

Can't wait for a delivery? A doorbell from the hardware shelf does the same job by this evening, and if you can wait, this wireless doorbell will do. Where there's no hand that can press, get a baby monitor instead.