Medical Alert Symbol: You might have seen elderly people and seniors wearing necklaces, pendants or wrist bands. Most of them are not wearing them as fashion accessories. They are wearing medical alert necklace, pendant or bracelets.
One of the ways through which you can differentiate medical alert device from other fashion accessories is the symbol that appears on them.
Medical alert symbol is the medical symbol that represents healing imprinted on the medical alert systems. If you see any necklace, bracelet or pendant with the medical symbol, it must be a medical alert device.
The Origin of the symbol
In the medical field, 2 symbols are used to represent healing. They are the staff of Asclepius and Caduceus. However, the normal medical symbol is the staff of Asclepius and it is the most commonly used symbol on medical alert devices.
Asclepius was the Greek god of healing. He was the son of Apollo the Greek god of the light, prophecy, music and poetry and the twin brother of Artemis. Asclepius was a powerful physician. His amazing healing power was the reason why he was called the Greek god of healing. It was believed that he was capable of raising the dead because of how skillful he was in medicine and surgery. In the Greek mythology, the daughters Asclepius were Panacea known as the Greek goddess of healing and Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health.
In the medical field today, the staff of this powerful Greek god of healing is used as medical alert symbol. The staff should be differentiated from that of Caduceus. The staff of Asclepius has just a snake without having any wings on the top. The American Medical Association adopted it as their emblem.
There are many theories on the origin of the design of the staff of Asclepius. One popular theory traces the origin biblically from Moses who was instructed by God to construct a pole with a serpent to heal any person bitten by snake that looked at it.
Asclepius can be confused with caduceus symbol. Though some people are using it as medical alert symbol but it is not the same with the staff of Asclepius. In the Caduceus symbol, the pole has two snakes instead of one that Asclepius staff has. The Caduceus symbol is modeled after the staff of Hermes the Greek god of commerce, cunning, invention and theft.
As it has been said above, the senior medical alert systems such as medical id alert bracelets, medical alert pendant and medical alert necklace have any of these medical alert symbols on them. The symbols help to differentiate them from other fashion accessories in the market. The use of medical alert symbols started in 2003. Before, medical emergence alert devices were not having any style or symbol on them. It was difficult to differentiate them from other fashion accessories. It was Sticky Jewelry that began this. Formerly, the engraving was done at some fees but today, it is done free of charge.