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Evidence-led

The problem we are
proving first.

Guardian is not just building software. Before we scale, we are conducting the first Australian peer-reviewed compliance study on personal alarm wearing behaviour for modern devices — because the data should come before the product, not after.

The research gap

Australia has no current data
for modern devices.

The government is funding personal alarms at scale under Support at Home — yet the most recent Australian peer-reviewed study on wearing compliance dates to 2015 and covers pendant alarms. The current market is 4G mobile alarms, GPS smartwatches, and app-connected devices. No peer-reviewed Australian compliance data exists for any of them.

A device not on the body provides no protection. The compliance failure is documented internationally — but unmeasured in Australia for the devices now being funded. Guardian Health's study is the first to fill this gap.

40%
of personal alarm users don't wear their device consistently — international peer-reviewed data
24%
never wear their alarm button at all — Heinbüchner et al., 2010, PubMed: 20814795
6%
of at-risk elderly actually use a personal alarm — Nyman & Victor, 2014, n=3,091

Verified studies

What the research shows.

All studies below have been verified via PubMed, Wiley Online Library, Cambridge Core, and JMIR. No unverified statistics are presented on this page.

Source Study Key Finding
🇦🇺 Australia
2008		 De San Miguel & Lewin
Australasian Journal on Ageing, n=2,610		 Wearing consistent at home — but drops significantly in the shower and overnight. Two of the highest-risk periods for elderly falls.
🇦🇺 Australia
2010		 Johnston, Grimmer-Somers & Sutherland
Int J Gen Med, PubMed: 20830199		 Four distinct subgroups of alarm non-use identified among older fallers, including owners who did not use their device effectively.
🇦🇺 Australia
2015		 De San Miguel, Lewin et al.
BMC Geriatrics 15:140, n=222, Curtin University		 Alarm purchasers had no better emergency outcomes than non-purchasers. 38.2% of owners still had emergencies where the alarm could have helped. Owning a device does not equal protection.
🇦🇺 Australia
2017		 De San Miguel, Lewin et al.
Home Health Care Services Quarterly, n=295		 Three purchasers had a long lie while wearing their alarm and did not press it — forgot they were wearing it, didn't want to bother anyone, feared an ambulance.
🇩🇪 Germany
2010		 Heinbüchner, Hautzinger, Becker & Pfeiffer
Z Gerontol Geriatr, PubMed: 20814795, n=52		 24% never wear their alarm button at all. Only 14% wear it 24 hours a day. 83% of those who fell alone and lay on the floor for 5+ minutes did not activate their alarm.
🇬🇧 UK
2014		 Nyman & Victor
Ageing & Society 34(1), Cambridge, n=3,091		 Only 6% of at-risk community-dwelling elderly adults self-reported using a personal call alarm — far below the 30% annual fall incidence.
🇺🇸 US
2015		 Chaudhuri, Oudejans, Thompson & Demiris
JAGS 63(11):2415–6, PMC4662041, pilot n=18		 Half of all falls while not wearing the device happened with it in the charger — overnight or early morning. Direct evidence of the charging gap.
🌍 International
2024		 Chan, Kan & Wong
JMIR 26:e53607, systematic review of RCTs		 Wearable monitoring adherence among community-dwelling older adults remains low globally despite documented health benefits.

Every Australian study covers pendant alarm technology from 2008 to 2017. The current Support at Home market is 4G mobile alarms, GPS smartwatches, and app-connected devices. There is no peer-reviewed Australian compliance data for any of these. Guardian Health's study is the first.

Our study

Stage 1 — The compliance study.

We are conducting a prospective observational cohort study measuring personal alarm wearing compliance among elderly Australians with government-funded devices under Support at Home.

What we are measuring
How often, and in which contexts, funded personal alarm users actually wear their device — including at home, in the shower, overnight, and when out. Wearing compliance by device type: 4G mobile alarm, GPS smartwatch, pendant, and app-connected.
Who is involved
80 to 150 community-dwelling Australians aged 65 or over with a government-funded personal alarm under Support at Home. Tracked over 8 to 12 weeks via a validated wearing diary and structured check-ins. No clinical intervention. Low-risk, HREC-approved study design.
What we will produce
The first peer-reviewed Australian wearing compliance dataset for modern personal alarm devices. A policy brief for the Department of Health and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. An open industry report for aged care providers and device manufacturers.
Research partnerships. We are actively seeking university research partners and aged care provider collaborators for this study. We are in discussions with ARIIA, the Australian Government-funded aged care innovation body, about listing this as a formal partnership opportunity. If you are an aged care provider, researcher, or clinician interested in being involved, we would love to hear from you.

Why it matters

The research drives
the product.

Guardian is not building a product and hoping it works. We are measuring the problem first — then building the hardware and software that specifically addresses what the data tells us. The Stage 1 compliance study informs the Guardian Band design, the predictive alert model, and the government funding pathway.

Get in touch about the research

Aged care providers, university researchers, and aged care workers welcome.