As mom and dad get older, you may find yourself wishing that you were able to keep an eye on them 24/7. Yet, despite your fears about their safety, you don't want to take away their sense of independence. With a little empathy and understanding, you can address the issues that commonly affect seniors and make their independent living situation safer and more comfortable.
Difficulty Bending Over
As we age, our joints wear down and become inflamed, making it more difficult to bend over to reach things that are lower to the floor. Simple things like bending over to pick up dropped items become monumental challenges.
Solution: Store a “Grabber” in every room. A Grabber is a long handled device that essentially extends the reach of the user. Grabbers are sometimes the target of jokes, but they are handy tools for an elderly adult to have around when they drop a kitchen towel, need to pick up clothing from the floor, or want to reach something without getting up. Instead of just one that can be carried around the house, though, store a Grabber in every room. That way, a Grabber will be readily available in whichever room it is needed.
Difficulty Seeing
Eyesight often deteriorates as we age. To add insult to injury, medication and food packaging is often made with print so tiny that it’s impossible to read the instructions printed on them.
Solution: Keep a large magnifying glass in every room. Magnifying glasses make it easy for seniors with vision problems to see anything they need to: who’s on the caller ID, the buttons on the microwave, medication labels, food package labels, and more.
Frequent Nighttime Trips to the Bathroom
A combination of age and medication side effects often cause seniors to have to get up repeatedly during the night to relieve themselves. Fumbling in the dark to reach the bathroom in time can lead to personal injury or embarrassment.
Solution: There are actually several options here.
- If mom and dad have an en-suite or master bath, try moving the bed closer to the bathroom if space allows. Even if this means pushing the bed next to the bathroom wall, that will lessen the number of steps that your elderly parent has to take.
- If you can’t move the bed—or even if you can—install several automatic night lights that will light up the path to the bathroom, and inside the bathroom itself, so your loved one will be able to see where she is going even in the middle of the night.
Inability to Call For Assistance
When an older adult is injured, ill or confused, they can easily forget where they left the cell phone or even unable to reach it.
Solution: Install a landline with a fixed location for the telephone. Although seniors are getting increasingly tech savv, many in this generation are still more accustomed to traditional landline telephones, not cell phones. Paying for an extra landline phone that is always in one location in the apartment makes it easy for your loved one to remember where the phone is.
In addition, provide your senior with a cell phone and cell phone holder that attaches to their belt or waist. Ask them to keep the cell phone on them so they will always have instant access to it
Finally, program in your own cell phone number as a speed dial on both the landline and their cell phone. Tape the speed dial code to each phone in large print. Instead of memorizing seven digits, they will only have to dial a one or two digit code to reach you.
Senior apartments are often compact and designed for those with diminishing capabilities. But you can make your loved one's senior apartment even safer by implementing these compassionate ideas.
