Tips for Reducing Fall Risk for Your Senior in Their Living Room
Each year throughout the United States millions of elderly adults experience falls. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 4 older adults, a full 25 percent of the total population of seniors over the age of 64, falls, and that that number is likely too low considering that many seniors will fall and not report it to their doctor.
Home Care Services Havertown PA – Tips for Reducing Fall Risk for Your Senior in Their Living Room
As a family caregiver it is important that you understand the potential risks involved with a fall. A senior who falls can suffer severe injuries that can reduce their mobility, diminish their quality of life, and even shorten their life expectancy. By going through their home and identifying potential hazards, you can work toward reducing or even eliminating those hazards so that your senior has less of a chance of experiencing such a fall.
Use these tips to help you reduce fall risk for your elderly loved one in their living room:
• Choose furniture wisely. When evaluating your loved one’s furniture, make sure that it is all stable enough to withstand the weight and pressure of someone holding onto it. Remember that elderly adults with mobility issues will often reach out for anything that they can grab to help them maintain their balance as they move through a space. If a piece of furniture is on wheels, is very lightweight, or is weighted disproportionately, they might move or topple it with their grip, resulting in an even more serious fall.
• Remove loose floor coverings. Floor coverings such as rugs and runners can be attractive, but they can also be serious fall hazards. Try replicating the shuffling gait of an elderly adult through the living room and pay attention to how your feet catch on flooring. This could result in a serious trip and fall for your elderly loved one.
• Remove obstacles. Make sure that the paths through your parent’s living room are clear and easy to navigate. Trying to move around something, negotiating a small space, or hitting an obstacle in the path such as the corner of a piece of furniture, a decorative item on the floor, or electrical cords across the pathway, can cause your parent to trip or lose their balance and fall.
Starting home care services for your aging parent can be a fantastic way to help keep them safer and healthier throughout their later years. An elderly home care services provider can be with your senior loved one on a schedule that is right for them. This is not just about addressing their needs and limitations, but also giving them the support, care, and assistance that they need to help them to achieve and maintain a higher level of independence, activity, and fulfillment as they age in place.
When it comes to helping them to stay safer, this home care services provider can give your parent physical support and assistance to help them stay mobile and to handle personal care tasks, such as bathing, dressing, or toileting. They can also help your love one with tasks throughout their home and in their daily life that might challenge their physical abilities, such as helping them keep their home neat and tidy, or going to the grocery store with them to help pick up and carry purchases.
As a family caregiver this can help you to have peace of mind knowing that your senior can maintain an active, engaged, and fulfilling lifestyle while staying safer, healthier, and more comfortable.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adultfalls.html
If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Care Services in Havertown PA, please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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