Spring Cleaning Helps To Protect Older Adults From Accidents
As the weather turns warmer and the days get longer, spring cleaning becomes a priority. For older adults, this is a particularly important task. Maintaining your home plays a key role in your safety and helps to increase your odds of aging in place. Excess clutter and neglected repairs make you more likely to suffer accidents, resulting in the need for nursing home care. The following offers some simple spring cleaning tips to help you protect yourself.
Identifying Common Dangers Around Your Home
Slips and falls are among the biggest hazards for older adults hoping to maintain their independence and avoid the high costs of nursing home care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than three million older adults are involved in slip and fall accidents each year. These result in broken bones, torn muscles or tendons, and other injuries that impact your health and mobility. The most common place for these types of accidents to occur is in the home.
Slip and fall injuries are one of the most common causes for older adults to require assisted living or nursing home care. To protect yourself against these injuries and the costs associated with them, be aware of common dangers in your home that make them more likely to occur:
- Cluttered floors and in hallways;
- Torn carpeting or loose flooring tiles;
- Wet, slippery flooring surfaces;
- Lack of proper lighting;
- Neglected outdoor landscaping.
Spring Cleaning Tips For Older Adults
The National Council on Aging (NCOA) advises that there are simple steps older adults can take to help prevent slips and falls. Getting regular exercise is important in maintaining balance, as is having your vision checked and reviewing medications you are taking with your doctor. Keeping your home well-maintained also plays a key role in ensuring your safety. Start your spring cleaning with these easy tips:
- Clear laundry, boxes, books, magazines, or other types of clutter from floors, stairs, and hallways;
- Remove old throw rugs and other trip hazards;
- Replace mats at doorways and in bathrooms, tubs, or shower stalls;
- Replace lightbulbs in lamps and other lighting fixtures;
- Sweep porches and sidewalks, removing dried leaves, twigs, and other types of debris.
Some tasks, such as repairing flooring, installing safety rails, and trimming tree branches will require outside help. Check with family and friends as well as neighbors in your community for free or low-cost solutions. If you find that maintaining your home and property is too large a task, you may want to consider downsizing. This can help ensure your comfort and safety, both now and in the years to come.
Let Us Help You Today
At Cavallo & Cavallo, our goal is to protect older adults and help them maintain their quality of life through aging in place. Medicaid planning helps by providing access to a wide range of services available in the community, without depleting your life savings. To discuss your options, call or contact our Bronx & Westchester Medicaid & nursing home attorneys online and request a consultation in our office today.
Resources:
cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adultfalls.html
ncoa.org/healthy-aging/falls-prevention/preventing-falls-tips-for-older-adults-and-caregivers/take-control-of-your-health-6-steps-to-prevent-a-fall/
https://www.cavallolawyers.com/helping-older-adults-deal-with-the-coronavirus/
