In-Home Health Care is the best option for many seniors who require personal care assistance, for a wide variety of reasons. For starters, it guarantees a certain level of personal service, since it revolves around one-on-one interaction. This means that medication schedules, personal preferences, likes and dislikes, are all well known to the personal care assistant, something that isn’t always common in nursing homes. In-home health care is also usually the most affordable option, as only the time spent with the personal care assistant must be paid for, as opposed to a room, food, and 24 hour care, when it’s not really necessary. For these reasons and more, in-home health care is the superior choice when it comes to personal care assistance. However, if a senior is going to remain in their own home and if they don’t require 24 hour care, then it is crucial that they are safe. This means that there are certain precautions that should be taken around the home, in order to reduce the risk of injury or incident. We have more safety tips listed on our website here. The following 5 tips are to help create a safer home environment for seniors receiving in-home health care in Upland, California.
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Install Grab Bars in Restrooms
Stairs are also very accident- prone places, as one might imagine. Luckily, there are a few precautions that can be taken to help avoid incident or injury. For starters, hand rails should be installed on both sides of the stair case. This ensures that whichever way one is walking, up or down the stairs, support is readily available. We also encourage utilizing non-slip mats on stairs as well, since having good traction when traversing up or down stairs can be vital to preventing an accident. Lastly, you might want to consider placing a strip of brightly colored tape on the edge of each stair, so that the steps are easily visible. This will help eliminate any missteps. Stairs are one of the most common places for accidents to occur, so taking precautions with them is extraordinarily important.
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Take Precautions with Stairs
Stairs are also very accident- prone places, as one might imagine. Luckily, there are a few precautions that can be taken to help avoid incident or injury. For starters, hand rails should be installed on both sides of the stair case. This ensures that whichever way one is walking, up or down the stairs, support is readily available. We also encourage utilizing non-slip mats on stairs as well, since having good traction when traversing up or down stairs can be vital to preventing an accident. Lastly, you might want to consider placing a strip of brightly colored tape on the edge of each stair, so that the steps are easily visible. This will help eliminate any missteps. Stairs are one of the most common places for accidents to occur, so taking precautions with them is extraordinarily important.
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Rugs Are a Risk!
This is one of the only instances where safety might require a sacrifice of style, but it is well worth it. Throw rugs are a nice visual addition to any room, but they are also a fairly serious hazard. If they bunch up, they can easily go unnoticed and be tripped on. Rugs can also slip themselves, thus causing the person
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Wear Non-Slip Socks
Non-slip socks are especially helpful for homes with hardwood or laminate flooring. These types of floors can get extraordinarily slippering, depending on changes in the weather or what liquids have spilled on them. Even certain cleaning solutions can make them slippery for longer periods of time. In order to avoid all risks of slipping, we suggest wearing non-slip socks regularly while at home. They can provide enough traction to ensure that you can safely traverse your home without the risk of slipping. By following this step, you can eliminate a large percentage of risks from your home.
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Keep Frequently-Used Items in Reach
Although it may seem obvious, it is worth noting that items which you frequently use shouldn’t be kept in hard-to-reach places. If you have to stand on a step stool to reach some dishware that you use often, it’s not only impractical, but it is unsafe to consistently do so. It significantly increases the chance of an accident occurring inside of your home. Therefore, we suggest keeping dishes and cookware that you often use in lower cabinets, which are easily within arms length for you. Similarly, you don’t want to be bending over all of the time to reach items that you need. Optimize the space around you which is easy for you to access. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help… especially if your personal care assistant is with you. You shouldn’t put yourself at risk if you don’t have to.
These 5 tips can greatly reduce the risk of accidents occurring within your home. If you are a recipient of in-home health care, and your personal care assistant isn’t with you for 24 hours a day, you should make sure that you are safe while you are by yourself. Spend some time taking the proper precautions and you can avoid a number of possible incidents. Home Care by Benchmark is the leader in Ontario in-home health care. Our priorities are safety, comfortability, and of course, quality care. Check out our website to see how we can help you or your loved ones today!
