5 Ways To Set-Up Your Home For The Elderly To Live Independently

Photo Courtesy: k4dordy

We’re living in special times because there are more people reaching old age than ever before. Compared to how many reached old age in the past, it’s a considerable difference. If you’re slowly getting older then congratulations, but there are a few things you need to think about. Once you start feeling your age, there is a good chance you might have to move into a care home because there is no way you can continue living alone when you can’t look after yourself.

Even if you have to move in with family, it’s not the same as living by yourself. Luckily, there is a way you might be able to keep your independence for longer. The reason it’s hard to look after yourself is because of the way your home is set-up, but if it was set-up differently it would make things a lot easier and day-to-day life would be great. If you want to stay independent for longer then look at some things you might want to think about in the future.

1. Add a Chairlift

You will need a way to get upstairs and you can’t rely on your legs carrying you up there forever. It’s far too dangerous anyway because if you were to fall you could cause yourself serious damage. If you have the money, it would be a very good idea to buy a chairlift. It means you could sit on it whenever you wanted to go upstairs and you could press a button to take you up. If you don’t have one you might not be able to use half of your home.

2. A Downstairs Bedroom

Sitting room on the ground floor for elderly single women, now converted to a lovely B&B. Photo Courtesy: Eunice

You will need to use your bedroom every day unless you plan on sleeping on the couch, so instead of having to make it upstairs you could just set up a bedroom downstairs. Once you are ready to go to bed at night it’s a lot easier and safer if you only need to walk into the next room.

Also, because you use your toilet multiple times per day, you should also have one built downstairs if there isn’t one there already.

3. Suitable Heating

When it gets cold in winter you want to make sure you’re as warm as possible. Lots of elderly people are affected by the cold each winter and if you don’t want it to happen to you there must be adequate heating. You don’t want an open fire because if anything was to happen, you might not be able to get out of the house quick enough. Have your central heating checked regularly to make sure it’s in good condition.

4. Keep Things Low

As your body gets older you’re not able to jump onto chairs to reach something from the top shelf anymore. If you did there is a big chance of injury and you don’t want to break anything because you’ll end up in hospital. The only solution is to keep everything as low as possible and you won’t even need to reach up high. You could maybe have your cabinets lowered so everything is easy to grab and you still have places to keep everything.

5. Lots of railings

Photo Courtesy: Olivier Bacquet

When you are trying to walk around it helps if you have something to hold onto. You will definitely need something to help you up the front steps if you don’t have a ramp. Even walking around your home might be challenging, so having railings around the place will give you a chance to get some rest as you move between rooms. They can even help you to lift yourself up if you accidentally fall onto the floor, but you should have a buzzer near ground level anyway just in case.

Colin Graham is the owner of Heat Exchangers. He is a happy go lucky person and likes blogging about various issues related to home improvement. While there are many heat exchanger firms in WA but he stresses on the fact that nobody provides better crack detection service than his firm.