New-News-Essential Guide To Home Modifications For The Elderly And People Living With Disabilities
Essential Guide To Home Modifications For The Elderly And People Living With Disabilities
A home modification refers to any renovation, refurbishment, fitting, or layout change that enhances the safety and mobility of an elderly or disabled person within their home. These modifications can be made to an existing home or planned for during the construction of a new home that will be occupied by an elderly or disabled person. Fortunately, there are many builders and services available to support you throughout the process of making these modifications. Some of these modifications are designed to help caregivers and family members assist their loved ones in living a more independent and accident-free life. There is a wide range of modifications and features available that can support these goals.
Here is an extensive list of home modifications, equipment and aids that can be implemented to enhance the quality of life and personal safety of elderly or disabled residents, allowing them to live comfortably in their own homes for as long as possible.
Elderly Bedroom Modifications & Aids
Elderly residents will sleep and change in their bedrooms, so these rooms have to be the centre of comfort and safety in a home of a disabled or elderly resident. Thankfully – there are lots of great aids and services to help:
• Bed Rails – install a modulated bed with motorised adjustments with bed rails on either side.
• Walk-in wardrobe – with plenty of room to manoeuvre a wheelchair if necessary
• Lowered hanging racks and draws – it can sometimes be easier for the person to have items in draws and tallboys, rather than hanging. If there is hanging space, lower the racks for easy of reach
• Bedroom phone or safety system – the person needs to be able to make a phone call in case of emergencies
• Easy to reach power source – they will want to plug in their mobile phone and iPad to charge easily at night.
• Ensure the bed can be reached on three sides – this is for ease of changing sheets and assisting the person if in trouble
Elderly Kitchen Modifications & Aids
The kitchen is the central area for socialising and living in most people’s homes and the place where they will make a meal three times a day – so convenience needs to be top-of-mind when designing, remodelling or just reworking the kitchen area for a senior:
• Lowered kitchen benches – not easy or cheap to do in an existing home, but if you are renovating or building new, consider creating a kitchen where the benches can be accessed by someone in a wheelchair
• Strategic pantry packing – think about the location of everyday items and how easy they are to reach. For those in wheelchairs – it makes sense to put high use items in cupboards down low, but for seniors who are still upright and mobile, it’s not great to put a lot of items down in cupboards where bending is required.
• Soft-close cabinets and doors – these are just easier and tidier solutions for people with limited mobility.
Hallways and Passageways & Aids
• Nightlights – these plug into power points down low and illuminate softly after dark.
• Guardrails and handrails – these are great for long hallways (just to provide a pitstop if necessary)
• Wide hallways should be considered in new constructions
Bathroom Modifications & Aids
Going to the bathroom or showering can be a point of frustration and anxiety for the elderly, especially because the presence of water everywhere makes them feel unsafe. The bathroom is where you should focus a lot of your safety modification efforts:
• Handheld showers – showers on tethered chords that can be brought down and used by someone who’s seated
• Non-slip bathroom treatment & mats – if you aren’t able to treat the tiled floor with a non-slip paint or covering, this is your next best bet.
• Grab rails and handrails – shower and bath – put them everywhere – in the shower, near the sinks and on the way out.
• Shower rods and screen removal – shower screens are less safe than curtains and rods and harder to operate. Remove them and replace with curtains.
>p>• Bath seats and chair platforms – seats and platforms
Staircase & Step Modifications & Aids
As people age, it becomes less and less practical that they live in a house with a lot of staircases, steps or undulating ground. But that doesn’t mean they have to leave their multi-storey home immediately – because below are some helpful modifications to these areas for greater living ease:
• Consider a chair lift: if the senior or elderly person still lives in a multiple storey home, then it might be necessary to install a chair lift for them so they can reach higher floors. These lifts come in a standard seat – where the resident can simply sit and be transported upstairs, or alternatively there are bulkier lifts that can take whole wheelchairs.
• Guardrails – if you not at the point of chairlift, then guardrails on both sides of the stairwell are essential.
• Relocate bedroom and living areas – we would strongly recommend that you relocate the senior person to one floor – where most of their living can occur without needing to use the stairs frequently. This will greatly improve their daily quality of life.
• Elevators – for houses set into hills and other challenges – there are full lifts that can be affixed to the outside of the house, and from lower garages etc that can improve mobility in a house on multiple levels.
• Replace stairs with ramps where you can – small sets of steps into rooms, outdoor areas or front doors can be challenging over time. Replace with ramps where possible.
• Visibility & traction improvements – add visibility and traction strips on the front edge of the stairs so each stair can be seen more easily
Outdoor Area Modifications & Aids
Just like everyone else in Australia – seniors and people living with disabilities love living and socialising outdoors – but there are a couple of tricks and hacks below which will ensure that outdoor areas are safe and comfortable:
•Outdoor decks – ensure boards are the same height and boards aren’t uneven
•Railings should be added to deck stairs and edges (including appropriate balustrading)
•Pave or concrete walking paths and install railings – make passage around the outside of the house easy
•Raised garden beds are a great idea – if your senior resident likes to garden, then raising the garden beds gives them easier access (without the need to squat etc).
Carport & Driveway Modifications & Aids
• Ensure the flooring is non-slip – some garage floor concrete paints can be super slippery, especially when wet. Applying a non-slip coating, or recovering the garage is a must to reduce the chances of falls – especially when assisting someone using a car.
• Sensor lighting – can ensure visibility when returning home at night
• Storage height – if the garage is the house’s storage zone, then ensure items are not stored completely out of reach and bulky items can’t fall from above.
Flooring Modification & Aids
• Non-slippery services – Laminate, polished wood, some tiles, polished concrete and other modern, stylish floor coverings can be a death-trap for seniors or people living with a disability. Consider recovering floors with non-slip variants or carpet in living areas.
• Low glare flooring solutions – believe it or not, glare from sunlight on shiny floor services such as tiles or lino can contribute to a fall in a senior. This is just another reason why you don’t want shiny floor coverings in a house for seniors
• No sunken areas or undulated flooring – raised and lowered floors can be great from a designers point-of-view – but entirely impractical for a senior or elderly person living in your home. It makes sense to ensure that all areas of your house have level flooring and if constructing the home, build it on one level with completely flat layout.
Doorways & Entry Modifications & Aids
• Widen doorways and door frames for easy passage of wheelchairs
• Sliding doors are often best for seniors more so than knobs
• Ramps to and from the building
• Some seniors living spaces have push-button door releases with soft-close doors on gas struts
• Putting automatic closing gas struts on doors ensure they close after entering
• Lowered handles and doorknobs
• Easy to lock security screens and double bolts on doors (for security and safety)
Warning and Help Systems For Elderly
There is some amazing technology on the market that can be built into homes from the point of construction that can fully enable the senior to live in a very technologically connected and safe way – including panic facilities and automated help services. There are also many features that can be enabled on a mobile phone device – including some cool apps that can assist a senior person that is in a state of panic or emergency.
Government Funding and support for home modifications:
In Australia, many state and territory governments provide financial support for those constructing or modifying a home for an elderly person, or person with a disability. There are a few hoops to jump through – but it’s worth pursuing because these modifications can be expensive – if you intend to go the whole way and ensure your house is optimally safe and comfortable for your loved one.
The process involves you undertaking a home assessment with a representative from your Community Care Program or equivalent in each state, and they will also undertake an occupational therapy assessment to understand what level the person requires modifications and support in the home. From there – you will engage a Master-Builder qualified contractor or home aids service to provide you with a cost estimate, and you will need to re-engage with your state based service at this point to share your cost estimate, and agree on the size of your rebate and the activities that they will and won’t fund.
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