Whether your loved one lives alone, with family, or in a senior living home, there are numerous things you can do to help assure their safety.
The optimal living situation for someone with dementia is one that promotes their happiness and independence. For a person with dementia, familiarity with their surroundings and daily routines is crucial. They should be able to navigate their home surroundings to understand where they are and where they wish to go. Confusion and disorientation may increase because of environmental changes.
An individual with Alzheimer’s disease can live comfortably in his or her own home or the home of a carer if safety precautions are taken. The affected person’s talents will alter as the illness worsens. However, the house may be modified to accommodate these modifications with a little imagination and adaptability.
Home Safety Tips
Evaluate Your Surroundings
Dementia patients may be particularly vulnerable to dangers outside or in certain parts of the house. Watch out for tools, chemicals, cleaning supplies, and other potentially harmful things in garages, workspaces, basements, and outdoor areas.
Avoid Safety Hazards in the Kitchen
Whenever possible, use automated shut-off equipment. Apply stove knob covers, remove knobs, or turn off the gas when the stove isn’t in use to prevent harmful stove use. Cut off the waste disposal’s power. Throw away poisonous plants and ornamental fruits that could be mistaken for actual food. Clear the kitchen counters and table of any vitamins, prescription medications, sugar substitutes, and seasonings.
Be Prepared for Emergencies
Keep a list of the emergency phone numbers and addresses for the neighborhood’s police, fire, hospitals, and poison control helplines.
Make Sure Safety Devices are in Working Order
Make that there are available and periodically inspected smoke, carbon monoxide, and fire extinguishers. During daylight saving time, batteries should be replaced twice a year.
Install Locks Out of Sight
All doors should have a latch or deadbolt that is either above or below eye level. Interior doors should not have locks on them so that a person with dementia cannot lock themselves inside. Keep a spare pair of keys near the door so you can easily access them.
Keep Walkways and Rooms Well-Lit
It might be perplexing when the number of light changes. By including additional lighting in the entrances, exterior landings, and spaces between rooms, stairways, and restrooms, you may even out the space. In the restrooms, bedrooms, and corridors, use nightlights.
Consider Removing Guns and Other Weapons from the Home or Storing them in a Locked Cabinet
Firearms can provide a serious risk to everyone in the house if someone there has Alzheimer’s disease or another kind of dementia. For instance, when the illness worsens, a person may begin to perceive someone they have known for a long time as an intruder because they are unable to recognize them. When a gun is nearby, the outcome might be disastrous.
Place Medications in a Locked Drawer or Cabinet
Use a pill box organiser or keep a daily list and cross down each drug as it is taken to help ensure that medications are taken safely.
Remove Tripping Hazards
Throw rugs, extension cords, and a lot of clutter should go.
Watch the Temperature of Water and Food
The dementia patient could find it challenging to distinguish between hot and cold. For monitoring water temperature, think about installing an automatic thermometer.
Assess Bedroom Safety
Closely monitor the use of an electric blanket, heater or heating pad to prevent burns or other injuries. Provide seating near the bed to help with dressing. Ensure closet shelves are at an accessible height so that items are easy to reach, which may prevent the person from climbing shelves or objects falling from overhead.
Secure Large Furniture
Verify the stability of any large TVs, cabinets, or bookshelves. Make sure chairs have armrests so you may rise up from a seated position with support.
Avoid Injury in the Bathroom
To add more support, install grab bars in the toilet, tub, and shower. To stop falls, paste textured stickers on slick surfaces. Think about putting in a walk-in shower.
Improve Laundry Room Safety
To prevent someone from ingesting or touching dangerous chemicals, keep all cleaning supplies, such as liquid laundry pods and bleach, out of the way, locked up, and in their original storage containers—not decorative ones. To prevent improper things from being placed in or removed too soon from washing machines and dryers, think about installing safety locks. Lint screens and dryer ducts should be routinely cleaned to prevent fires.
Assess Safety Hazards in the Garage and/or Basement
Limit access to heavy machinery like snow blowers, weed eaters, and lawn mowers. Keep hazardous substances out of reach, such as paint thinner and petrol. The garage door should have a motion sensor installed.
Support the Person's Needs
Avoid making your home feel overly constrictive. Independent living and social contact should be encouraged in the house. Organize spaces for activities.
People with dementia and other diseases that affect memory must feel safe and secure in their surroundings. These consistency and comfort can be produced by in-home carers by carrying out a few straightforward tasks in preparation or on a regular basis. Because individuals with dementia frequently feel the want to wander both inside and outside.
During a study on Unattended Home Exits of Dementia Patients by the National Library of Medicine, 13 (25%) caregivers reported that the PWD had at least one exit. Of these 13, nine (69%) exited only one time and one person each exited two, three, four or five times. The total number of unattended exits reported was 23. Of these, 14 (61%) occurred during the day, seven (30%) occurred at night, and the time was not recorded in two (9%) instances. The hazard rate for experiencing at least one unattended home exit was 0.94 per person year [13 events/5028 study days) *365]. Males (39%) were significantly more likely to exit than females (8%). The average age of participants who exited was 75 years, significantly younger than those who did not exit (81 years of age).
How does Dementia Affect Safety?
Limitations in mobility and coordination, changes in the environment, and signs of dementia (such as confusion, memory loss, and disorientation) can all have an impact on safety.
Dementia patients can feel as comfortable and secure as possible with assistance from family, friends, and medical experts. You can ensure that both the environment inside and outside of your home is as safe as possible by using a safety checklist.
Safety may be affected by a multitude of changes that Alzheimer’s disease brings about in the body and brain. Depending on the disease’s stage, these could include:
Judgment
Forgetting how to use household appliances.
Sense of Time and Place
Getting lost on one’s own street.
Behavior
Becoming easily confused, suspicious or fearful.
Physical Ability
Having trouble with balance.
Senses
Experiencing changes in vision, hearing, sensitivity to temperatures or depth perception.
Home Safety for Dementia
Alzheimer's Caregiving Tips, Home Safety (National Institutes on Aging, 2017)
A webpage that covers the topic of home safety, offering tips on basic safety for every room, moving around the house, and minimizing danger. Includes information about impairment for each sense – sight, smell, touch, hear, and taste – and how this may affect safety in the home.
Home Safety for People with Alzheimer's Disease (National Institutes on Aging, 2017)
A webpage for those who provide in-home care for people with cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s, or other dementias. It includes checklists for each room in the home to create a safer environment.
Alzheimer's and Home Safety - Webpage (Alzheimer’s Association)
This webpage contains information on how dementia affects safety and provides home safety tips. It includes a home safety checklist for the rooms in a house.
This Caring Home, Home Safety Virtual Home - Webpage (This Caring Home)
This webpage shows online research-based solutions to home safety and daily care issues. It offers information, visual diagrams, and examples of products to promote safety in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, living/dining rooms, stairs, and outdoors.
A person with Alzheimer’s may feel more at ease, less overwhelmed, and retain more of his or her independence by taking steps to increase safety.