7 Home Safety Tips for Seniors

Taking care of an aging individual in your home comes with plenty of responsibility and challenges. It’s not an easy task and requires a lot of effort, commitment, and mental resilience. Thankfully, following simple home safety tips for seniors can make things much easier.

A home is a haven, a place to retreat to after a long day of work. For many, it’s a place where we seek comfort and rest— to get us ready for the day after. As we age, our bodies and needs begin to change—simple tasks such as walking down the stairs to the kitchen used to be easy. However, for elderly folks, walking down the stairs can be a dangerous thing to do.

Hence, for a home to be suitable for aging individuals, various changes need to be made. This is because senior citizens are more prone to accidents and falls due to their limited mobility. According to the CDC, each year, millions of older people— those 65 and older— fall. Injuries from falls aren’t just life-threatening; they can be expensive as well. In 2015, Medicare and Medicaid shouldered 75% of the total medical costs from falls.

If you or someone you know is considering taking care of an aging individual in your home, you must understand how to make a home as safe as possible for seniors. Although these home safety tips for seniors won’t prevent accidents from happening, they can reduce the likelihood and keep seniors at home safe for as long as possible.

Every senior has different health and physical problems. Depending on what those problems are, a home might need to undergo several changes or mild modifications. In this article, we’re going to give you a rough idea of ways to make things safer.

Home Safety Tips for Seniors

• Fireproof Your Home
• Have Emergency Contacts Ready
• Upgrade Your Bathroom
• Install a Stair-Chair Lift
• Maximize Home Security
• Make The Kitchen Safer
• Remove Clutter and Trip Hazards

Fireproof Your Home

The idea of fires happening in your home is terrifying enough. When you’re a senior, it can be hard to run from a fire in your home due to physical limitations. Although it’s impossible to prevent fires from happening at all, there are several steps you can take to protect your loved ones and make your home a safer place for seniors.

Living in a fire-prone region of the country like California means it’s essential that you have an evacuation plan ready.

You should have at least one smoke alarm on every floor of your home. Consider installing smoke alarms that emit light for those who have trouble hearing. You can also have bed and pillow vibration alarms installed.

Smoke alarms are highly recommended because they detect fires earlier. In a fire, smoke tends to spread faster than heat. When smoke is detected, it gives the household enough time to call for help and escape.

You can also reduce the risk of fires occurring at all.

If seniors are forgetful, an excellent way to alert them is by using timers to remind them to do specific tasks. For example, turning off the stove or taking something off the stove is a trivial task but can often be forgotten. The use of timers can help seniors in their day-to-day life.

Another trick is to make sure there’s nothing flammable near ignition sources. For example, make sure there are no curtains near the stovetop or heater. The senior shouldn’t be cooking in loose flammable clothes either.

Have Emergency Contacts Ready

One of the most important things you can do to prepare a home for an elderly person is to discuss options for getting help if they have an emergency. Seniors who live at home, especially alone, need to know who to call when they need help and how to make that call.

During an emergency, running to the phone in another room can be dangerous. Instead of having a telephone, consider installing a cordless phone or just having a cell phone for the senior to use.

For landline phones, you should also consider that reading small fonts of text and hearing can be difficult for seniors. To solve this problem, you can opt for a big-button phone with large buttons and a built-in amplifier. Some products even allow you to add a photo of a frequent emergency contact over programmable buttons.

In addition to portable phones, you can also have a medic alert system. This usually comes in the form of bracelets or devices that are worn on the body. If a senior needs medical support, they can alert the medical support center and contact the staff by pressing a button.

Upgrade Your Bathroom

For seniors, bathrooms can be a dangerous place. This is due to slippery floors and surfaces, hot water, and the dangers of getting in and out of a tub. The good news is, you can make some modifications to the bathroom to accommodate seniors and ensure their safety.

For more information, you can refer to this resource page on bathroom modification for seniors and people with disabilities. Since seniors are more accident-prone and/or have limited mobility, it is necessary to renovate their homes to ensure they are safe and comfortable.

First, you should set a limit on your thermostat to prevent people from getting scalded by hot water. Second, consider installing a safe step walk-in tub. The average cost of a safe step walk-in tub is between $9,000 and $25,000. Although a walk-in tub might seem like a costly investment, they come with a bunch of benefits, such as:

• Walk-in tubs have various safety features, such as anti-slip surfaces, and other attractive functions like hydrotherapy and the ability to self-clean.
• The self-cleaning feature is highly beneficial because you won’t need to worry about accumulating black mold in your bathroom, and you won’t need to clean your tub very often. Cleaning a large bathtub can be back-breaking work for an older adult with mobility issues.

You could also add non-slip bath mats for added safety. There are two styles of non-slip bath mats— the one that goes inside the shower or bath and the one that’s more absorbent and is designed for the bathroom floor.

In addition to a walk-in tub, you could add grab bars and rails around the toilet to help seniors get up. These items are now often covered by many Medicare Advantage plans. Some adhere to the wall through strong suction, while others have to be drilled on as a permanent fixture.

Install a Stair-Chair Lift

A common cause of injuries to seniors in their homes is falling on stairs. Due to the decreased physical strength, reduced balance, and overall frailty, a simple journey up the stairs can become a potential hazard. This is why we can’t have a list of home safety tips for seniors without talking about the stairs.

Equipment such as stair-chair lifts can come in handy in a senior’s day-to-day life. The tool is especially useful if the home has a second story. Installing a stair chair lift can reduce the dangers of tripping and make going up or down the stairs much more manageable.

With a stair-chair lift, seniors don’t need to worry about getting up and down the stairs. A stair-chair lift will make their journey up or down the stairs much more manageable and hassle-free— ensuring their safety and maintaining their independence.

Maximize Home Security

Seniors’ apparent frailty can make them easy targets for dangerous individuals. You can increase a home’s safety for seniors in several ways to protect them from potential dangers.

Keep windows locked at all times and remind seniors not to let anyone into a home if they are living alone. For seniors with dementia and the tendency to wander, alarms on doors can come in handy.

A practical yet simple device to protect seniors when opening doors is a chain across the door. This allows them to screen the visitors without opening the door completely. A much more sophisticated device to help screen visitors is a video camera.

Today, there are many security devices and systems on the market you can purchase for your home. A couple of the most well-known security system providers are ADT and Ring. Every senior has different needs and preferences. Thankfully, there are a variety of security devices and systems available to choose from.

Make The Kitchen Safer

Cooking is a therapeutic and calming activity. However, it comes with several dangers. For seniors, cooking their favorite dishes can turn disastrous if safety isn’t practiced in the kitchen.

Seniors shouldn’t be prohibited from cooking at all, but it’s important to reduce risk as much as possible, hence the importance of kitchen safety.

Eyesight worsens as people age. Poorly lit kitchens are a safety hazard. To make the kitchen safer for seniors, you should adequately light kitchens with rocker light switches, light switches in proper places, and night lights.

A few other things to consider should be kitchen placement, space, flooring, and cabinets. The kitchen should be easily accessible— preferable on the ground floor since many people will struggle with stairs in their later life. For seniors who use wheelchairs, the space of the kitchen is essential. Make sure that there is enough room for seniors to move around.

To prevent falls in the kitchen, consider having a slip-resistant floor. Most of the time, kitchen floors are usually made of marble or tile. Marble floors look excellent, but they can be slippery, and their hardness can cause hip or back problems even worse.

Lastly, make a note to design the cabinets to accommodate seniors. Cabinets are usually used for storage in the kitchen. For seniors, cabinets should be easy to open and close, easy to reach, and well lit. For more information on kitchen safety for seniors, check out this article.

Remove Clutter and Trip Hazards

Rugs add character to a room. However, they can be trip hazards and may cause fatal injuries for seniors. To prevent rugs from slipping out of place and causing injuries, you should tape them in place. This way, seniors can walk around the room without having to worry about the rug slipping out of place.

Besides rugs, it’s essential to keep the home as clutter-free as loose objects on the floor can become trip hazards. You should also fix unstable furniture such as chairs or tables since they can cause falls and provide adequate support.

If extension cords are needed in the home, they must be organized and never placed across walkways. Having cords in the middle of the room is extremely dangerous since seniors can easily trip right over them and injure themselves.

Lastly, encourage the use of rubber slippers. These slippers are excellent for elders because they decrease the risk of falls. The rubber soles on the bottom provide a firm grip on the floor, and seniors can walk around their homes confidently without worrying about slipping or tripping.

Wrapping Up

You may have decided to move an aging parent into your home or just trying to help them continue to live safely and independently in their own home. There are several things you need to prepare in advance since aging individuals require extra safety and care.

We’re confident that if you’ve followed these seven tips, you’ll be more at ease and so will they.  If you’re concerned about funding and how to pay for some of the tools, gadgets, and assistive devices we’ve mentioned, check out this page that covers paying for assistive aids that help seniors.

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