Your Minder Voice Record and Alarm Replay Reminder Clock with Loud Multiple Alarms, Recordable Talking Alarm Clock for Medication Reminders (With Adapter) Gift for Mom, Dad, Elderly, Seniors

I purchased this for my husband, Bobby, who had dementia and all sorts of medical problems. He passed away in April of this year, but this was such a blessing to us and to him while he was alive. A multiple stroke victim, various cancers survivor, age 76, dysphagia, completely blocked carotid arteries, serious balance/gait inbalance, just all around confusion and difficulty understanding simple instructions. I work and couldn't be with him during the day, and my brother stayed with him during the day while I was at work, but my brother had much difficulty with being confused about what medications to take at which times, especially since they changed often, even multiple times a month. Bobby was taking between 25-30 different medications, not including over the counter or vitamins/supplements at any given time and had several home health aides coming by at different times weekly (Physical therapist, nurse's aide, LPN, speech therapist, wound care nurse). After much difficulty and having to call home multiple times a day to make sure his medication was administered correctly and pill reminders, etc. I found this and IT WAS A GOD SEND! Truly! I purchased the MedCenter pill 31 day organizer that goes with it and they together are especially wonderful. Now on to the unique clock features... The clock has 4 buttons on top, which are clearly labeled and color coded for ease of readability. A confused elderly person can remember to hit the yellow button, for instance, to light up the display, or the red button to turn off the alarm. One button tells the time and date, "The time is, 10:30 AM on Friday, June 20th" for example. We found this to be especially wonderful. Bobby would forget what day it was several times a day, and so he knew he could just tap this clock, which was right beside him, any time he wanted to find out the day, date or time. It also told the next time a pill was due, "Your next reminder will be 1 PM," for example. On the back there is a recording button and 6 different slots that you can record about 30 seconds of a message, "Good morning, Honey. It's time to take your morning dose in the morning pill section. I hope you have a great day. I love you!" If I had extra slots, for example we only needed 4 pill reminders, then I would leave little thoughtful messages for him on the other 2 slots, like "God loves you!" or "Hope your day is going good! I love you and will see you tonight!" or "Don't forget to pray." or "I left you some brownies in the kitchen." or "don't forget to drink your Ensure." or "Guess what, Honey? I LOVE you!!!" or whatever. That way, he sort of felt like I was nearby all during the day and it was a comfort to him. You can also choose an alarm tone instead of personal message for any or all of the alarms, and the alarm goes off for about a whole minute, then repeats every few minutes again until they turn it off. So if it goes off while he's in the restroom, he doesn't miss it, but the other people in the house don't have to listen to my sappy love messages until he gets out. It runs on electricity and has a battery backup, so no worries that it will lose power.Now that he is gone, I still use the alarm for various other times I need a personal message alarm. For example, I am a chronic late sleeper and snooze my alarm until the very last second and then I get up and have to rush just to get to work late. For some reason, in my drowsy state, I start reasoning..."I can shower in one minute, get dressed in 5 minutes, pull my hair up in one minute, put my make up on while stopped in traffic...." you get the drill. I have even accidentally turned my alarm completely off instead of snoozing it, and then I don't wake back up until I'm already late for work. With this, I can program a personal message that snaps me back to reality, like, "Get up, you're going to want time to get ready. Just get up already!" Hearing my own voice of reason helps me to not be lazy and to get on up. Then, I can set a second separate alarm, "Ok, it's 6:30! You're not up yet! Get your lazy tail out of the bed!" I know it sounds crazy to some, but I'm sure some of you can relate either with yourself or a teenager, or whatever.I can also set an alarm for one of my housemates (who are home all day), "Don't forget to walk the dog." or "Please put the roast on to cook," or "don't forget to water the plants," or "Don't forget to mow the lawn before it rains." Think of all the many alarms you could set for yourself or someone in your home. You could set it in the living room with the message, "Don't forget to lock up the house and turn off everything," for a teen that might be coming in late. It's going to go off every so often so it will catch them at some point when they get home. They might see a note, but they will hear this annoyingly until they do it.One last comment. The clock is just the right size. Not huge or heavy, but chunky enough to be easy to grasp and hold on to, and big enough so that the readout is nice and large. Love this alarm, and it's light enough and sized right to travel with.

I bought this alarm because my husband takes a variety of pills 5 times per day. He has some memory loss and mild cognitive impairment. I'm his caregiver, but I've always been forgetful and not the type to stick to a schedule, so we set our cell phone alarms to go off at the times he needed to take a pill. But after about a year, we started to just turn the annoying alarm off, then forget to get the pills. . . luckily missing any of his pills is not life threatening. So, I thought this recordable alarm might help and it does. I record a message: "don't turn off this alarm until the pills are taken". It's easy to record up to 6 short messages. It's loud enough that placed in a central location we can hear it from all our downstairs rooms. Another plus is that it's easier to turn off than a cell phone alarm . . . his cognitive issues made it almost impossible for him to remember how to turn off his cell phone alarm. The only negative so far is that unlike a cell phone alarm, it's not easy to take with you when you are out and about. And when we traveled by airplane I wanted to take it with us, but I didn't want the alarm to go off while we were on the airplane or accidentally (it would be easy when traveling for one of the buttons to get depressed and when you push the red or green button you get a very loud message, not the ones I record). Since you can't deactivate the buttons I had to take the batteries out and when we got to our destination I had to program the times for the alarm all over, and that process is not simple nor quick. Which reminds me, the other annoying thing about this alarm is that the "factory recorded" messages cannot be "erased" or recorded over and they come on after my personal message and are really loud and rather annoying. BUT it's worth it if you want to be sure you take any med's you tend to forget.

This alarm clock does everything it promises and more. It is easy to use and intuitive to set; I barely needed to refer to the instructions to set up and record the six alarms. The display is nice and large. It could be a little easier to see because of low contrast (black on grey) but because the displays lights up on demand, that isn't much of a drawback. It has a number of great features: across the top are big, color-coded buttons that tell you the time and date or when the next alarm is scheduled, light the display, or turn off the alarm. The instructions for the various functions on the back of the clock are very easy to understand, but the lettering is very small which could be a problem for some people, though it didn't matter to me. A great bonus is the choice of running it either on battery or the power cord. The one and only feature that could be improved is the volume of the alarm messages; there is no volume control, and I personally found it a bit too loud for comfort when it was next to me. However, it was easily fixed by taping a piece of paper over the speaker to muffle it a little. So, in spite of this one issue, I felt in merited this five stars because it is outstanding in every other way.