Elder care

Tips on Keeping Your Elderly Loved Ones Safe at Home

young lady taking care of old womanMy grandmother is 85 years old and gets around great. She still drives, and actually just got her driver’s license renewed for another six years. She is very independent and is able to do most things herself. However, she gets very worried at night at home by herself, especially because she is very good at pushing random buttons on her cell phone, making her unable to make or receive phone calls. She chooses not to have a land line to save money every month, so the normal medical alert device was not an option for her. So my mom put me on assignment to find ways to protect her so she can continue living by herself. After all of my research, this is what I found:

1. Take out rugs in her house. I don’t know about your grandma, but mine thinks she needs a minimum of five rugs laid out in EVERY SINGLE room of her house!! Who would have thought you need four rugs and newspaper laid out in a laundry room?! The few times she has fallen or stubbed her toe, it has been because of her rugs in her house. I finally had to put my foot down and explain to her that they are a huge hazard for her, especially at night when she can’t see as well. After much persuasion, she agreed to let me put them under her bed. However, she brought them back out two months later, so now I will be taking them to the local Salvation Army to add to her donations. I always check her house for dangers like this every time I am there.

2. Install night lights. The last thing we decided we needed to do was to put night lights in every single room of the house. We went to Lowe’s to get her night lights. Many of the new night lights do not put out enough light to make a real difference, so we got the old school basic night lights that come on when it is dark enough for them to turn on. That way she does not have to worry about turning them on and they definitely light up the rooms and bathrooms enough for her to see to get to the light switch if needed. The four pack we got was less than $5!

3. Medical emergency monitoring. I thought the only way to have a medical monitoring device for my grandma to keep around her neck was through a landline. Thankfully, there is a local company, Smith Monitoring, who specializes in alarm systems and medical monitoring. So not only will my grandma get medical monitoring, she will have all the benefits of an alarm system as well. She will be able to push a button on her keypad to call the local police, fire department, or emergency personnel. What I couldn’t believe is that it will cost a little less than paying for a land line and a medical monitoring device separately! Only $50/month! I love this because we don’t even have to set her alarm (that would be too much information for my grandma for sure) for her to get all of these benefits. We will all feel much safer knowing she can push that button if she ever can’t get to her cell phone.

We feel so much better now, and so does my grandma, now that we made these three easy changes. We can all rest easier day AND night knowing she has help at just a touch away!

An article published on behalf of Ms. Karen. She is a writer, blogger and work from home mom who researches all types of safety and security measures to ensure her readers stay safe and secure.

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