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Home
Safety |
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Volume 1, Issue
3 |
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SAFE
Aging Newsletter |
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August
2004 |
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In This Issue:
- The Case of Mrs. Barker
- General Home Design Principles
- Ask Dr. Vanessa
- Medicine Record Keeping
- 2004 Conference: Aging: it's BOOMing!
Humans continually change from the first breath of life to the
final breath. The home should also change continually to adjust to
life’s course. Planning the home living space for safety, health and
comfort is very important throughout all phases of life, but
especially during the senior years.
The rate of aging is different for everyone. There are no hard
and fast rules. This makes general home space planning a bit more
difficult, but not impossible. Carefully planning the space at home
can make living at more enjoyable, and in fact, can actually make
"doing possible."
1. The Case of
Mrs. Barker by
Dr. Vanessa M. Dazio, OTD, OTR/L
A home should work easily for anyone who is living in it. If it
doesn’t, opportunities increase for accidents. The case of Mrs.
Barker is an example of how simple design changes can make a
huge difference in safety, comfort and abilities. Ms. Barker is
85 years old, 5' tall, has arthritis of the shoulders and hands
and glaucoma. She has recently been widowed. Her husband was 6'
tall, very strong and a former construction worker. He always
helped her when she needed anything from the cabinets, upper
shelves, refrigerator or when she had difficulty seeing
something.
Mr. Barker always read her medication instructions out loud
to her and opened the lids. He always poured the gallon of milk
into their cereal in the morning. Mr. Barker also prepared her
bath water, because Mrs. Barker had a hard time turning the
water faucets on and off, due to her arthritic pain and limited
hand grip strength. When Mr.
Barker died, Mrs. Barker wanted to remain living in their home
of 60 years. Mrs. Barker couldn’t reach the dishes on her
shelves in the kitchen. She couldn’t reach the towels in her
linen closet to bathe. She couldn’t pour the gallon of milk into
her cereal. She took too much medication on a couple of
occasions, because she couldn’t read the medications
instructions. She couldn’t read the comics. All of a sudden, she
found life was very difficult and very uncomfortable at home.
She did not feel safe. She felt she was straining to get her
basic activities done, and started to feel afraid of falling. In
fact, she began to think she could no longer manage on her own.
The thought of moving was more than she could bear.
Simple design changes make the difference
Mr. and Mrs. Barker had found personal ways to adjust to the
changes Mrs. Barker experienced due to her arthritis and
declining vision. Mrs. Barker was able to bathe, and dress and
feed herself, with Mr. Barker’s daily help. This was completely
acceptable to this couple. But when Mr. Barker died, Mrs. Barker
had to make changes so that she could independently complete her
daily life activities.
SIMPLE DESIGN CHANGES (Little to no cost)
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Kitchen: Her dishes were lowered to the lowest shelf. A small vertical
dish rack was placed on the counter top, so Mrs. B could easily
reach dinner and salad plates, a cereal bowl and some glassware.
Milk was purchased in quart containers. Mrs. Barker learned to
pour her milk into cereal using 2 hands rather than one. The
refrigerator shelves were readjusted so beverages were easily
accessible and placed almost at her waist height in the
refrigerator. The lightest foods were placed on the higher
shelves. A small jar opener was purchased. These changes made
eating and meal preparation possible without help. |
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Bathroom: Towels were lowered in the bathroom linen
closet. A few towels were rolled nicely, and placed on top of
the toilet tank. This added a decorative bit of color to the
bathroom, and made the towel easy to reach. Levered faucets
replaced bathroom and kitchen faucets. This made it possible for
Mrs. Barker to turn the water on and off anywhere in her house,
without pain or strain or help. |
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Miscellaneous Changes: Brighter light was added
throughout the house, and a small magnifier was purchased for
reading medications labels and the newspaper comics. The
pharmacist was asked to provide medication instructions in large
print, and easy twist off medication caps, and Mrs. Barker got a
daily pill container so she would not have to struggle everyday
opening lids and reading instructions. |
Life is a series of adjustments. Mr. And Mrs. Barker made
many personal adjustments that made living together enjoyable
and comfortable, and made "doing possible." When Mr. Barker
died, Mrs. Barker had to find other ways to adjust so she could
remain living independently at home.
Planning space for safety, health and comfort can make "doing
possible." If you have a situation such as this, consider
calling an occupational therapist for a home safety assessment.
It could help to make aging in place a safe reality.
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2. General Home
Design Principles
The interior design features of a home can
make the difference between independence and dependence., safety
and hazardous living conditions. Here are a few design
principles to consider when planning for home safety and
comfort.
- Equal use for all: Can home features be equally used by
all who live in the space? (Example: One resident 6' 5" tall and
another is 5' tall. Can light switches, cabinets, shelves, and
other features be easily used by all people living in the same
space)
- Flexibility: Can items in the home be easily used by
all users? (Example: can the faucet be easily turned on and off by
the resident who has arthritis?)
- Simple to use: Are items in the home easy to figure
out, simple to use?
- Low physical effort: Do features in the home require
minimal physical effort to use?
- Size and space: Is there enough space to move around
without using odd or awkward postures?
- Sensory awareness: Can you easily use all the necessary
senses (such as sight, and touch) when using features in the home?
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3. Ask Dr. Vanessa
Question: How do we make our house more "user friendly"? My
husband just had a stroke and he is not as strong as he was. What
can we do on a limited budget?
Answer: Regardless of age or condition, a home should be
easy for the user to use it. It should feel comfortable, and it
should feel safe. That is "user friendly". Without actually seeing
your home, or getting to meet you both, it is difficult to give
specific recommendations. For specific recommendations, consider
calling an occupational therapist to request a formal home
assessment. Recommendations from a trained health care professional
can make the difference between independence and dependence. I can
give you some generalized ideas on what you can do. Consider the
following:
 Accessibility
Your home should be easy to use. Your daily life tasks should
be easy to perform. You should feel safe doing them. If you
don’t feel safe doing any particular task, stop...take a
serious look at what and how you are doing the task. Then, see
if you can make a change so that you could feel comfortable or
safe.
Work at optimal heights.
This means you should not have to bend or reach to get the
job done. Optimal heights are about "waist height" for most
tasks, about 4-8 inches lower for heavier tasks (depending on
the task), and a few inches above the waist for very high
coordination tasks that require vision. If you are bending at
the waist or reaching above your shoulders or below your knees,
you are definitely not working at optimal heights.
Be comfortable at home
If you do not feel comfortable, then you need to look at what
you can do to feel comfortable. Look at the task, your
environment or yourself. If you have to reach further away than
the distance of your toes, you are reaching too far. If you have
to bend or twist to get the job done you are working in an
unnecessary and unsafe awkward posture. Something needs to be
changed! (Refer to our July newsletter for more details).
Limit the force you use
You want to be able to perform your needed, daily activities in
a comfortable manner, without a huge amount of effort. Any
activity that requires reaching above the shoulders, below the
knees, twisting the back or bending over are awkward postures.
These actions are harder for the body to do, and actually cause
force.
When a person has a physical limitation such
as one caused by a stroke, awkward postures and force should be
avoided! Life can be difficult enough without having additional
unnecessary burdens. Exerting effort means you are physically
straining. Straining is muscular force. When the muscles are
straining, they are not working efficiently, and they can become
fatigued quickly. Accidents often occur when the body is forced
to assume awkward postures or is using excessive physical force.
Look at how you can both work in your "comfort zone", where you
can work without assuming any awkward postures.
Product or equipment choices
Choose
products or use equipment that do not require extra effort.
Remember: effort = force.
Knobs are harder to open than levers, because knobs require
more strength when gripping. A lever can be pushed with the
forearm or elbow, no hands needed at all! Therefore, less
strain, less force.
Another example: A dull knife can make slicing food much
harder because of the blade’s resistance. That resistance makes
cutting anything, a potential safety hazard.
You mentioned your husband was not as strong after his
stroke. In this situation, a dull blade could make cutting food
independently impossible and dangerous!
Conclusion
Making a home "user friendly" can often be easily
accomplished by trying to assure accessibility, limiting awkward
postures and the need to use force, and making good product and
equipment choices.
Specific personalized recommendations to improve home safety,
especially when complicated medical factors are present, can be
made by trained health care professionals such as an
occupational therapist. For more information, call SAFE
Aging at 866-SAFE-AGE.
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4. Medicine
Record Keeping
Although medicines can
make you feel better and help you get well, it's important to know
that ALL medicines, both prescription and over-the-counter, have
risks as well as benefits. Talk with your doctor, pharmacist,
or other health care professionals.
TIPS:
- Keep an up-to-date, written list of ALL of the medicines
(prescription and over-the-counter) and dietary supplements,
including vitamins and herbals, that you use-even those you only
use occasionally.
- Share this list with ALL of your health care professionals.
- Tell about any allergies or sensitivities that you may have.
- Tell about anything that could affect your ability to take
medicines, such as difficulty swallowing or remembering to take
them.
- Always ask questions about any concerns or thoughts that you
may have.
- Use one pharmacist to fill all of your medications.
- Ask for an annual review of your medications.
Free Download!
Medicine Record
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5.
2004 Conference: Aging: it's BOOMing!
Dr. Dazio,
OTD, OTR/L, SAFE Aging, CEO along with
Wayne K. Ekren, JD and Dr. Deborah Gavin Dreschnack will be
presenting "Appraising the Potential Risks of the Elderly Living
Independently, Using a New Innovative Tool: The
SAFESM
at the Florida
Conference on Aging, sponsored by Florida Council in Aging, Florida
Association of Aging Services Providers, and Florida Department of
Elders in Miami, Florida on August 30, 2004 to September 2, 2004.
For more information, visit
http://www.fcoa.org/Conf2004/conf2004.htmlor
call 850-222-8877
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SAFE AGING
LEARNING CENTER
This is a reminder to
take a look at the
SAFE AGING LEARNING CENTER. There is something for
everyone in our learning center. There are excellent
resources to learn about safety, health, injury prevention
and other useful resources and information. We add to this
list continually for your
learning pleasure.
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