Welcome to the Caregiver Shield Web Site
What is the Caregiver Shield?
There are many products on the market for the elderly and the disabled who
live alone. There are emergency call buttons that connect you with a call center who can either contact someone on your call list or call 9-1-1 for you. They often have fall detection that can issue an alert if the person falls. Here are just a sample of providers curtisy of Mordor Intelligence.
These and others all work well and provide a great service.
But what about situations where the person is being cared for by a loved one 24/7. In those cases, these call buttons are rarely used by the caregiver.
But what if the caregiver becomes incapacitated or worse – dies. Imagine what the person being cared for would go through.
What if the person being cared for is cognitively unable to push a call button.
The “Gene Hackman Effect”
In February of 2025, Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa were found
dead in their home. Hackman suffered from Alzheimer’s and his wife was his primary caregiver. Arakawa contracted a rare respiratory disease (hantavirus pulmonary syndrome), attempted to contact help and died somewhere around February 12th. “Medical experts say it’s possible the 95-year-old [Hackman], who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, did not even realize his wife of more than 30 years was dead in the home where he was living.”1 He certain did not know how to call for help.
“If he did [know she was dead], experts told the BBC, he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief, trying to wake her up before the disease caused him to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act – a process that likely repeated for days before he, too, died.”2
That is what Caregiver Shield is intended to provide. Automatically call for help in the case where the Caregiver is incapacitated.
Who Needs the Caregiver Shield?
Anyone who is caring for someone who is incapable of calling for help (even pushing a call button) needs the Caregiver Shield. It will notify up to eight first responders that you designate with an email, a text and a phone call that something has happened to the caregiver and to send help immediately.
Another use case could be for a person who lives alone. My sister was in good health and had no need for a call button. But she lived alone and rarely had contact with the outside world. Caregiver Shield can be used in those cases to notify loved ones that the person has become incapacitated (or passed away). My sister’s body was not found for more than seven days.
How Does it Work?
Caregiver Shield works with two devices. One is a device like a fitness tracker that is worn on the wrist. It automatically keeps track of movement, falls, and heart beat. If a fall should take place, or movement stop, or the person’s heart stop, a separate device will be automatically notified and in turn notify a list of phone numbers and email addresses with an email, a text and phone call that something has happened to the caregiver.
False Alerts
False alerts are a significant problem with medical alert systems. Fall detection is very difficult to implement perfectly. My mother fell and could not get up. The fall detection she was wearing did not trigger. Yet you don’t want your medical alert device to constantly be contacting your first-responders when the caregiver accidently bumps into something. Caregiver Shield, since it is not a medical emergency device, contacts the number of the Caregiver and calls, texts, and emails for confirmation. If no confirmation is given within a pre-determined and programmable time, the first-responders are contacted.
Contact Us for more information
Call us at 860-478-0562 to learn more about Caregiver Shield and how it can help protect you!
For support, you can contact CaregiverShield@ListeningToGod.org
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g1xvzg4ko accessed September 8, 2025
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpv419jp3v9o accessed September 8, 2025