Falling in the home is a common accident that most people don’t think of on a day-to-day basis, despite the risk for serious injury. Here’s how you can protect yourself.
Anyone can have a fall, but older people are far more vulnerable, with around 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65 having at least one fall a year.
These falls can cause serious injuries in elderly people, such as a broken hip, concussion, and even a traumatic brain injury. Considering it’s quite easy to do, there’s no reason not to make your home fall-proof and prevent yourself from getting hurt.
In this post, we’re going to share our top 10 tips on fall-proofing your home so you can reduce the likelihood of injuring yourself. Take a look…
For elderly people, falling is a cause of distress, pain, injury, loss of confidence, loss of independence and mortality. These falls are often preventable, especially if you put the right measures in place. So, without further ado, here are our tips for fall-proofing your home:
In order to see where you’re going and spot the hazards in your path, your house needs to have good lighting. A few places you want to make sure are definitely lit are:
Make sure all your carpets are fixed firmly to the floor so they don’t curl up at the edges and create a trip hazard. It’s also good to make sure your carpets are:
Also, make sure to put non-slip strips on tile and wooden floors, and under any rugs on these floors to stop them moving under your feet.
Step 3 in fall-proofing your home is to tuck away all your electrical cords and telephone wires. As we all know, wires have minds of their own so, if you really want to stop them boa constricting around your foot and pulling you over, it’s best to physically pin them to a wall.
Elderly people often struggle with balance, so fitting grabrails in the places you’re most likely to lose balance is important when fall-proofing your home. The main places you should install handrails are:
Make sure you have enough surfaces in your house that are easy to reach. They should have enough space to fit all the things you use on a frequent basis so you’re not constantly struggling to reach something you need. Some examples would be:
Speaking of freeing up space, another way to fall-proof your home is to make it easy to navigate. Try arranging the furniture in a way that leaves clear and open pathways, and provides plenty of space to move around.
You could take this one step further by getting rid of things like end tables, large plants, adjustable floor lamps and other décor.
There’s not much point in moving furniture to clear space if your floor is cluttered. Give yourself a clear path throughout the house by making sure shoes, books, blankets and dog toys are put away.
This is especially important on steps because it’s much more difficult to see what’s in front of you. The main culprit is dropped washing, so keep your eyes out for those pesky socks that can creep underfoot.
We mentioned installing handrails as a way of not slipping in the shower, but if your balance is severely compromised you can install a shower chair.
Fall-proofing your bathroom is especially important considering the National Institute on Aging says 80 percent of people over 65 who fall in the home are in the bathroom when it happens.
This might sound petty, but you honestly don’t want to be struggling to stand up from your sofa. Consider the amount of time you spend there, it’s likely that one of these days you’ll go to stand up and fall back down because of the difficulty.
After reading through 9 tips, you might be thinking “this is too much work”. If that thought has crossed your mind, why not seek the help of a professional who can do all the work for you.
In this post, we’ve shared our 10 top tips for fall-proofing your home so that you can avoid having an accident.
We can’t guarantee that you won’t take a tumble but, with all the modifications listed above, the likelihood will drop severely. People in their old age are much more likely to be injured by a fall in the home and are much more likely to fall in the first place.
If you fit into this category, it’s imperative that you make your home fall-proof today so that you don’t severely injure yourself tomorrow.
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