If you have a senior parent with Alzheimer’s that wants to stay in their home as they age making that home safe for them is probably a high priority for you. Many of the modifications that will make the home safe will depend on the unique needs of your senior parent since Alzheimer’s affects all seniors differently. However, there are some universal safety upgrades that are a good idea for all seniors with Alzheimer’s. Hiring in-home care providers to assist your senior would also help to ensure their safety.
Child Locks On Cabinets And Drawers
One of the things that you can do to keep your senior loved one with Alzheimer’s safe at home is to put child locks on any cabinets or drawers that contain potentially dangerous things. For example, you should put a child lock on any drawer or cabinet that contains their medications as well as over-the-counter medications. You should also put a lock on drawers or cabinets that contain things like knives, blenders, sharp kitchen appliances, or anything that your senior parent could cut themselves on or hurt someone with by accident.
Touchless Faucets for Safety and Easy Use by In-Home Care Aides
Often seniors with Alzheimer’s will turn on faucets and forget the faucet is on, leaving them running. This wastes water but can also cause floods and serious damage as well as making the floor very slippery. To prevent this you can replace the bathroom and kitchen faucets with touchless faucets. Your senior loved one will just have to run their hand under the faucet to start it. A sensor in the faucet will start the water flowing when it detects motion. Then it will turn the faucet off after a few seconds. So there is no way that your senior loved one can leave the faucet on by mistake.
Touchless faucets also make it much easier for In-home care providers to help your senior loved one clean up each day. Having in-home care services can give your senior loved one a better quality of life and help them stay safe.
Remove Interior Locks
If any of the rooms in your senior loved one’s home have interior locks those locks should be removed. That way you won’t have to worry about your senior loved one locking themselves in a room or locking a care provider in a room by accident. If the locks can’t be easily removed have a locksmith disable them or at least make extra keys so that there are always spare keys around in case they are needed.
Smart Locks
Smart locks are a fantastic innovation that can really help prevent emergency situations for seniors with Alzheimer’s. With smart locks, your senior loved one can never lock you or an in-home care provider out of the house by accident. The lock operated with a code, and you can assign different codes to different people. Just punch in the code to unlock the door. You can also unlock or lock the door from anywhere with an app on your smartphone. So if something happens and emergency services need to get inside the house, for example, if your senior loved one has fallen, you can open the door from wherever you are.