Alzheimers Safety: How safe is Your Home?

Alzheimers safety is a concern for everyone who lives with someone with this disease. Keeping your family member safe can be very challenging and your challenges will change as the disease progresses. Their understanding of hazards and risks will decline and eventually disappear, this will leave it entirely up to you to keep them safe.

The safer you make your environment the less stressful your life will be.

There are so many different areas to worry about with Alzheimers safety.  Many of the safety issues most family members are concerned about are able to be removed. It is not difficult to create a safe environment in your home. It just takes a little time and guidance.

Driving: are they safe behind the wheel?

Driving safety is usually a concern in the early stage before the disease is diagnosed. Family members begin to question the wrong turns and wonder if there is a memory problem. Determining if someone is safe to drive is difficult for family members and often the family doctor will help with this responsibility.

It is very difficult for the person with Alzheimers to give up their independence. Driving is the last bit of independence they have. When they are no longer able to drive, they become completely dependent on someone else. Many men have a harder time letting go of driving than women do.

When they are still driving and they have Alzheimers, it is not only their lives at risk but other drivers or pedestrians who may be in the way when they are not able to respond quick enough. Here is an Alzheimers safety driving video with the facts and statistics related to it on the driving post.

Alzheimers Safety Keeping Them From Harm

Home safety covers every room in the house. The home safety checklist will help you go through each room and remove any areas of danger. The kitchen Safety and the bathroom are the areas where most accidents occur. Many of these accidents are preventable with a few changes.

Alzheimers and Wandering

Keeping a family member with Alzheimer’s disease safe who is in the wandering stage can be quite trying. Especially if your family member is one who keeps trying to go outside. The world outside the home can be a very dangerous place for someone with this disease. There are ways to distract them and deter them from trying to get outside.

Often family members don’t understand the extent of the disease. Your loved one may be able to carry on a conversation with you, but that does not mean they are able to process thoughts correctly.

I have seen family members get angry because they expect more than the person with the illness is able to do. They don’t mean to wander off. Often they will forget they are retired and try to leave the house to go to work. I have had 90 year old women think they needed to get ready for school

Alzheimers and Fall Prevention

Another area of safety concerns with Alzheimer’s patients, would be that of falls. As the disease progresses their sense of balance may worsen causing an unsteady gait.

There may be areas in your house that could cause a fall for someone who no longer has good balance or judgement. Often rugs that have been in place for years are now trip hazards. 

A fall can lead to many complications and great care should be taken to prevent them. There are many ways to improve the Alzheimers safety in your house.

Print the Alzheimers checklist and go through your house with the eyes of a visitor and you may be surprised at how many risk areas you find.