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Ask Slashdot: Panic Button a Very Young Child Can Use
First time accepted submitter Zotonian writes My wife is epileptic. Her seizures have been well controlled by medication until recently. My concern is that we have a toddler and infant at home. I've set up cameras so I can monitor the house, but I'm looking for a solution that my 2 year old daughter can hit a button to tell me to look at them if necessary. Most of the options I'm finding off the shelf notify first responders and I'm concerned of the number of false positives a toddler might initiate. Other solutions like cellphones or wearables for kids are too overloaded with unnecessary options like GPS, phone, games, etc. I'd rather have a simple 'push button' solution I can wire into my router that would send me a text or chat message that alerts me to check the cameras. Then if there is an actually emergency I can take the steps from there. I'm looking for cheap and simple. Any suggestions from the Slashdot community?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Desk-Panic-Button/?ALLSTEPS
Get a hub and a door/window sensor or the starter kit. Put the door / window sensor on a cabinet door and tell your daughter to open that door if mommy has a problem (you could put a teddy bear or something in there that she should take to mommy ONLY if mommy is having issues). Then, using the smart app, you can have that alert you anytime the cabinet is opened. Should be less than $150 or so and now you have the start of home automation as well.
I assumed he is a good man but a shitty engineer, so he asked here for help from people who are good engineers but shitty human beings.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah, except all he's *really* asking for here is an additional way to get notified if something's wrong, so he could take a look for himself via an internet connected camera.
This wouldn't (shouldn't) be about trying to use a 2 year old as a caretaker. The way I'm reading this, he just wants an extra fail-safe in place. (I think even a 2 year old is mentally functional enough to realize something's wrong with mom if she suddenly falls to the floor, flails around and acts generally unresponsive. It would probably make the kid feel better, not worse, if he or she knew simply pressing a button would be a way to communicate "help!".)
One of our kids used to have seizures (he's been free of them for a couple of years now while taking medication), and his younger sister, around age 2-3, was able to come tell us when it happened to him, if he was up in his room and we didn't notice it immediately.
I am guessing that he did not look very hard...
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Veriz...
first hit after googleing "Cellphone for a small child"
a child can easily learn that press 1 for daddy, 2 for mommy, 3 for grandma and if mommy needs help press the big red hand and tell the lady on the line our address.
Otherwise for his wife there are a TON of systems that are panic buttons designed for people who have siezures.
So, what does the question asker have against all the existing options?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I had epilepsy for 30 years, about one seizure every two weeks, before finally getting brain surgery last year. The seizures were deeply hallucinogenic, physically severe, often lasted 10-20 minutes, and they left me with a huge hangover; afterwards I had to sleep about 12-18 hours in one go, maybe wake up for maybe four hours, then go back to sleep for another 12-18 hour stretch. I was like my brain was rebooting like Windows after a blue screen. If I wasn't able to sleep, I would become really sick, get intense migraines, and start throwing up, and recovery took several days longer.
A big problem was people instantly making 911 calls. I was routinely being dragged off to an ER all the time, waking up in one at least once a month. They all knew me there, and realized after a while what the deal was, so I would be wheeled into a corner and left behind a curtain while they tended to more serious cases. I had to wait there for hours staring up at fluorescent lights and struggling to keep from vomiting and choking to death (since they liked to strap me on the bed face up). It usually took six to ten hours to get out of there- I had to wait for the lab to finish their ritual of drug assays for PCP, LSD, THC, cocaine, methamphetamine, and all kinds of other shit that they knew were going to come back negative. And this was before the ACA, so with a huge preexisting condition I couldn't get insurance from anybody, and had to pay out of pocket costs for meds which I couldn't afford half the time because this shit made it hard to get a job in the first place. When seizures came, I had about ten second warning from a visual aura. If I was outside I would quickly jump underneath nearby bushes or hide behind parked cars just so no one would see me and call the ER. I would wake up and stagger home bleeding, getting lost, and trying to stay out of sight. I did have a bracelet that said DO NOT CALL 911, along with my wife's number, but no one ever took it seriously. I wanted her to know so she could come pick me up, but I always wound up in the jaws of an ER instead.
Don't assume this guy and his wife want a 2 year old calling 911. That may be the last thing they need. I can see why he would want to know, right away. He's lived with her and is going to be better equipped to handle her than the paramedics will. if they can't get any clues from a toddler, the emergency responders have to figure out what's going on themselves, and that makes it a painful mess. There isn't a lot that an ER can do with a seizure anyway except strap the person down so they don't thrash around and get bruises. There's always the possibility of status epilepticus (which I've had many times) but you should wait until a seizure lasts for more than five minutes. They look scary, maybe like the person is dying, and of course there's the danger of thrashing around and hitting things. But in general a seizure doesn't do any lasting damage to the brain.