In the excellent movie Still Alice, the main character, Alice, boils some water for tea. It’s apparent that Alice has Alzheimer’s and that she is alone in the house. The movie audience held its collective breath until Alice suddenly remembered to snap off the stove. Alice was fortunate to have remembered the potential fire hazard that she had created but in real life many are not so lucky to remember in time to prevent a dangerous home fire.

The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) reports that the United States sustained over one million home fires in 2013, causing:

3,000 deaths
16,000 injuries
Almost $12 billion in losses through property damage
Statistics from NFPA show that unattended or forgotten cooking is the leading cause of all home fires.

Anyone aging in place with any degree of cognitive issues may simply forget that the stove is on. Yet even for people who are not suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer’s, home stove fires are still a hazard. Limited mobility and arthritic hands may make it hard to turn off a stove in time to avoid a flare-up.

But keep in mind distractions can happen to anyone and in any household.

Enter iGuardStove

The iGuardStove is The Automatic Stove Shut Off Device, and can mean the difference between a person aging in place safely in their own home or having to decide to move into a retirement center.

The iGuardStove is first and foremost an Automatic Stove Shut Device. The iGuardStove looks for motion in the kitchen and when it sees that you have wandered away or forgotten your cooking it will give you 5 minutes to return to the kitchen or it simply shuts off the stove. When it sees that you have come back into the kitchen it will automatically turn the stove back on to resume your cooking. It’s just that’s simple.

The team at iGuardFire, that designed the iGuardStove, believe in protecting people and giving peace of mind. And yes, there is also a Manual Timer for those times that you wish to do a roast or simmer a soup and don’t want to have to keep checking on it every 5 minutes.

Home Health features

The iGuardStove comes in two models. The Smart and Intelligent. The Smart helps keeps you safe and independent at home with the stove fire prevention without the use of the internet. The iGuardStove Intelligent gives you the same stove fire prevention features and also has the ability to connect to the home’s Wi-Fi and Internet service giving you a great selection of additional features for safety and Home Health solutions. This model is great for families that live across the country or caregivers that travel from home to home to control and monitor stove use from anywhere you can access the Internet. . (See iGuardFire.com for more information on advanced features).

One of the unique features of the iGuardStove Intelligent model is that it electronically tracks the stove usage and shows this data in an easy to read history of the behaviors of the stove user. This data is saved on a 12 month rolling basis and can show if memory loss is progressing over time and can raise red flags to erratic kitchen behavior. This is valuable information and can allow families to adjust the level of care or to turn on more safety features of the iGuardStove.

The Joys of (Safely) Aging in Place

It is important to those aging in place not only have the option to stay home, but that they can stay safely in their home. It’s all about being independent and retaining a level of dignity while making sure our loved ones are safe.