Safety is easily a top concern of many elderly clients at Alvita Care.
Indeed, If you don’t think that safety matters for an elderly parent or loved one, you can check out the below statistics yourself!
Statistics on the Importance of Safety for an elderly parent or loved one:
• The risk of falling increases with age and is greater for women than men.
• Annually, falls are reported by one-third of all people 65 and older.
• Two-thirds of those who fall will fall again within six months.
• Falls are the leading cause of death from injury among people 65 or over.
• Approximately 9,500 deaths in older Americans are associated with falls each year.
• The elderly account for seventy-five percent of deaths from falls.
• More than half of all fatal falls involve people 75 or over, only 4 percent of the total population.
• Among people 65 to 69, one out of every 200 falls results in a hip fracture, and among those 85 or over, one in 10 falls results in a hip fracture.
• One-fourth of those who fracture a hip die within six months of the injury.
You can take simple steps to help decrease the risk of your elderly parent falling! Here are a few tips in addition to last week’s suggestions
1. Loose rugs are your enemy: Remove ALL loose rugs in the household. Regardless of the sentimental value that your mom might perceive of the rug “completing the room,” rugs are your enemy.
2. Grab Bars are your friend: I cannot tell you the number of times clients will say that they do not need a grab bar because they use the toilet paper holder or the plastic shower door to help support their weight. Not only are these items not designed to support twenty pounds, but they also are definitely not designed to support the weight of an adult! This is incredibly dangerous, and installing grab bars is a relatively cheap and easy fix to this problem.
3. Keep a properly lit home: One Alvita Care client was so cost-conscience that she would not turn on any lights and instead used the flashlight on her walker. This is incredibly dangerous and an example of how cost savings can result in very expensive results such as a fall. Making sure that all the lights are on and can be controlled from various light switches will be helpful in keeping the entire home properly lit. Alvita Care provides the most excellent home care in NYC, Long Island, New Jersey, and Westchester County.
