Tips To Keep Aging Parents Safe At Home
It is important that you take precautionary measures if your elderly parents are living at home. Not only will this ensure that they remain safe but it will also mean that they can retain their independence for longer. Falling, burns and poisonings are among the top dangers to aging adults, as well as becoming the victim of home robberies, as older people are perceived as easier targets. With that, here are some general tips to keep aging parents safe at home.
- Invest in medical monitoring. This is a pendant with a button your parents can press in the event that they fall or another accident occurs. This immediately notifies emergency services and help will be on its way. This is impohrtant because a lot of times elderly parents are put in a position of being unable to call for help, dramatically increasing their risk for injury.
- Invest in a 24-hour monitoring service. This means that in the event that a fire, flood or other emergency occurs, emergency services will immediately be sent on their way.
- Ensure that there are smoke detectors on every floor of your parent’s home and that you replace the batteries every six months. Similarly, also ensure that there is a carbon monoxide detector near their bedroom and that the batteries are also changed twice every year.
- Tape all area rugs to the floor.
- Instruct your parents not to wear loose clothing when cooking.
- Use a kettle that automatically shuts off after it is used.
- Get rid of all unused medicine. Also keep medication in its original container so confusion doesn’t happen.
- Ensure that there are not too many items plugged into one electric socket at one time.
- To prevent scalding, have your water heater set at no more than 120 F.
- In the event that that an accident happens, elderly people are at an increased risk of forgetting what to do or who to call. It is important to have the numbers for poison control, a family member and your parent’s doctor written down in bold print. It can also be helpful to have all of these numbers on speed dial.
- Speak to a healthcare provider about doing an exercise program to help with preventing falls.
- Ask your parent’s pharmacist to print extra large labels so that your parent can read them easily.
- Elderly people are easily targeted for a variety of scams. Discuss with them the importance of asking for written information regarding prizes, charities, etc. before they agree to anything.
a.p.i. Alarm Inc. provides customizable residential security system solutions for elderly people living at home, including medical monitoring, home security systems with alarm monitoring. Contact us today.
