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3 Tips to Keep Dad Safe From Injury in His Home
Lisa Reisman • Aug 28, 2019
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3 Must-Haves to Keep Dad Safe in His Home
Living just a couple of hours from mom or dad used to be fine. You could easily visit on weekends and you didn’t have to hop on an airplane during holidays. The distance even provided important balance in your relationship with your parents.
Now, however, dad is alone and although he seems to be independent—after all, he is only 75—it just feels like it’s too far away. You worry if he doesn’t answer the phone. How do you ensure his safety at home when your home is somewhere else? “Where is he?” you think. “Is he okay?” You find yourself trying to subtly influence him not to do things that you know he enjoys because you have become very aware of the possible risks. “Why does dad have to go to the community center to play poker?” you ask yourself. “Why can’t he just stay home and play poker on the computer?”
And then there's the time that he filled the bird feeder. That really upset you because that meant that he had climbed up a ladder. "What was he thinking?" And even though you know that dad loves watching the finches and cardinals fly around the feeder, you’re mad at him for taking the risk. And you’re mad at yourself for wishing that he had waited until you came for the weekend. Maybe you should have hired the handyman dad knows from church to come over and fill the bird feeder. “But what would that have cost?”
If you have these conversations with yourself, you’re not alone. Senior safety is a concern for all of us. In fact, if you’re a Baby Boomer, chances are good that some part of your brain is always mulling over what your parents are doing and, more importantly, how they’re doing. According to Salon, “This has become the baby boom generation’s latest and, in some ways, most agonizing life crisis: what to do when the parents who once took care of you can no longer take care of themselves.”
The truth is that there is no way to shrink the 100 miles or so between your house and dad’s to a more manageable 10 or 15 miles. The further truth, at least as seen by Lillian Rubin, the author of Sixty On Up: The Truth About Aging In America, is that, “Most adult children actively worry about their aging parents often well before their parents need any help.”
That said, no one knows your father better than you do, so it’s important for you to figure out how best to help him now, even if he doesn’t always need as much help as you think he does.
Plan a trip home. Tell dad that you want to refill the bird feeder and take him out for breakfast. Your mission? You're going to the local home-and-garden store to do some power shopping. Now that you're armed with some simple home safety tips for seniors, you're about to take some easy but essential steps to lessen your father’s risk of injury or accident in his own home:
1. Install smoke detectors and CO2 detectors on every floor of the house.
If the existing detectors are more than a few years old, replace all of them. Look for interconnectable detectors. Interconnectable detectors have a wireless feature that activates all of the detectors, even if only one of them is triggered. Many have voice modules that indicate where the smoke, fire, or CO2 is likely located. If installed and programmed correctly, regardless of the level of the home that your dad is in, all of the detectors will signal that there’s danger.
2. Install fire extinguishers in the entryway of every main area.
It’s important to place fire extinguishers in doorways and other entryways. Unless the fire is a very small one that someone can easily extinguish, the best use of a fire extinguisher
is to suppress the fire long enough to allow everyone in the home to get out. If the fire extinguisher is mounted at the doorway, it will be easy to access, and adds a visual reminder to get out immediately.
Pick an extinguisher size that can be readily handled by the people most likely to be using it. A 10-pound extinguisher is usually fine for most homes. Get multi-purpose extinguishers, and make sure that dad knows how to use them. Household extinguishers of the type that you might buy in a home-and-garden store are classified as A, B, C, or a combination of these three. These indicate the types of fire—combustibles, flammables, liquids, or electrical—that the extinguisher can be used for. You and dad may even enjoy a trip to the local fire station for a quick lesson on how to use them.
3. Use nightlights.
If you had kids of your own, you probably had them all over the house. But nightlights aren’t just for babies anymore. There is a vast variety of battery-powered nightlights with built-in motion sensors. You can even opt for nightlights with built-in photocells that will turn on at dusk and turn off at dawn automatically. Although the batteries will probably last a year or so, when you install the nightlights, use a Sharpie to write the date of the battery installation on the reverse side of the light housing. Change the batteries a year later, regardless.
Taking care of these three items is a really good start. But in the ensuing months and years, you will have additional concerns about how to keep your dad both independent and safe. At Complete Care At Home, we are passionate about caregiving that keeps your loved one safe, while still respecting his independence. If you would like to start planning for the future now, please contact us
for how to care for your loved one as his needs change.
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