Medical Alert for Lock Screens

2015
Three phones on a wooden table showing the syringe and vial, insulin pump, and Star of Life lock screens.

Overview

Diabetes is many things. Challenging, empowering, strengthening. But when I had my first child I discovered it can also be humbling.

I was postpartum, managing T1D, and for the first time I thought seriously about what would happen if someone found me unconscious. Medical alert bracelets exist for exactly this. I had just never needed one before. So I looked into it and was surprised by the friction: find one, buy one, wear it every day, hope whoever finds you notices it.

Then I thought about the phone. The one thing almost nobody leaves home without. The first thing someone picks up when they find an unconscious person. The lock screen: visible to anyone, no unlocking required.

Methodology and Findings

So I made a small set of free downloadable lock screen backgrounds. A caduceus, a Star of Life, an insulin pump, a syringe and vial. Clear text: Type 1 Diabetic or Type 2 Diabetic. Legible at a glance, by anyone, under stress.

The setup: change your wallpaper. Once. A grandmother can do it. A teenager can do it. Someone who never touches their phone settings can ask someone else to do it for them once and never think about it again.

Two iPhones with medical alert lock screens: a black caduceus above the words Type 1 Diabetic, and a blue 3D-rendered caduceus.
Caduceus lock screen, rendered in KeyShot
Lock screen wallpaper with an insulin pump icon above the words Type 1 Diabetic.
Pump lock screen (my favorite)
Lock screen wallpaper with a syringe and insulin vial icon above the words Type 1 Diabetic.
Syringe and vial lock screen
Lock screen wallpaper with a blue Star of Life symbol above the words Type 2 Diabetic.
Type 2 Diabetic lock screen

Conclusion

I share them freely across social media and diabetes forums. No app, no account, no cost. Please feel free to save and distribute.