Dad diagnosed with very advanced prostate cancer - advice re trackers

Hi 17ontheinside, your dad's amazing, I love his determination to be independent, and his desire to walk every day, but I can also understand your concern, my only experience of monitoring systems, council issued, which cover falls and emergency use, which I understand has It's limitations, and the new smart watches, which include monitoring BP, heart rate, temperature and motion as well as a tracker. you should try www.nhs.uk/personal-alarms-and-monitoring-systems and www.which.co.uk assistive-technology-article-telecare-information-for-the-elderly. for what systems are available, and if you are entitled to any financial support through your GP or NHS trust. best wishes.

Eddie 

Hi 17ontheinside , your dad sounds amazing and good on him not wanting to be a burden on you.  Perhaps he doesn’t realise that being independent is also a concern to you and maybe he could restrict his walks to being on popular routes or even going with a group.  I was involved in a charity for some years which focused on retaining independent living and in cases like this, usually a compromise could be found which helped all parties involved.  Occasionally we did find people who would say that losing doing something they enjoyed was a compromise too far and in that case, you have to respect their own judgement (assuming dementia not involved) however hard that is for you.  David

Hi 17ontheinside 

sorry to hear your dad has advanced cancer . But what a wonderful age and still walking . 

from my knowledge you can buy trackers that look like key rings , watches etc . You would need to put dementia tracker into Google to see them but they work wonderfully. 

My OH walks fields every day for up to 10 miles . So I have added “find my phone “ onto both our phones . So if he’s late I check . And it works great . So that could be another option if he has a smart phone.

Best wishes to you both 

Liz & OH xx

Thank you Eddie.   It’s great that he is still upright, but is a bit of a worry at times.   I’ll have a wee look at the link.

Thanks, David.  No dementia, thankfully.  We thought we had bypassed that and he would go quietly, but he’s got other plans       After a wee search, I think one of the tracker watches might be the way to go.

Thanks Liz and OH!   I think a GPS tracker watch might be the solution.   He’s not great with tech, and an iPhone might just push him over the edge!  That way my sister and I can share the app without him having to worry about that side of it.