Reducing falls for older adults: What are the trouble spots in your home? – Scope

Sarah, a teacher in a rural Midwestern town, is always receiving compliments on her home. It has a cozy feel with soft lighting, shag rugs, and a beautiful cobblestone path leading to the front door -- what's not to love?

Unfortunately, her 80-year-old mother, who recently moved in with Sarah, has slipped several times. She ended up in the emergency department after one of the falls.

In Sarah's home, as in many homes, there are three significant trouble areas where older adults are most at risk of falling: the bathroom, stairs, and hallways or pathways.

If you're an older adult and want to make changes that will "fall-proof" your home and reduce your risk, here are some tips that might help:

The bathroom is the most common place for falls because it has a lot of wet and slippery surfaces; you have to step in and out of the shower or tub; and using the toilet requires you to sit and stand up -- which isn't easy if you have trouble keeping your balance.

Solutions:

Walking up and down stairs requires balance, lower body strength, good depth perception and endurance, all of which can be a challenge for some older adults. Falling down stairs, in particular, can have severe consequences, so it's important to have something to grab onto to keep that from happening.

Solutions:

The problem with hallways and other general living spaces is they can easily become cluttered, not have good lighting, or have uneven or slippery floors or rugs.

Solutions:

Sarah ended up installing grab bars in her bathrooms, installing additional lighting to the hallways and stairways, replacing the shag rug in the living room, and creating a smooth, concrete pathway next to the cobblestones for her mother to walk on when going in and out of the house.

Her mother has not had an at-home fall since.

In addition to fall-proofing your home, there are other fall-prevention strategies that you can try at home, such as modifying your diet and wearing proper footwear.

Nutritional strategies:

Supportive footwear (inside and outside the home):

Now that you have the knowledge you need to fall-proof your home, don't wait to make a change. Look around and see what you can do today to make your home a safer and healthier place.

This is the second blog post in the series, Reducing Falls For Older Adults. The goal of the series is to help older adults and their family members better understand how to reduce the risk and impact of falls. Patients referenced are composites, compiled from actual patient experiences

Claire Jacobson is a master's degree student in Community Health and Prevention Research at Stanford studying chronic disease prevention and healthy aging. Stanford professor and primary care physician Randall Stafford, MD, PhD, studies strategies to improve chronic disease treatment, including increasing the role of patients in their health care.

Photo by Sidekix Media

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Reducing falls for older adults: What are the trouble spots in your home? - Scope