How does an evaluation help with senior home safety?
A professional senior home safety evaluation is a thorough assessment of potential hazards in and around your home. Home hazards include anything that can cause injury, lead to a fire or lead to flooding in your home. Also, some hazards can jeopardize your safety by making it easy for an intruder to access your home.
The best person to conduct your evaluation is a professional who is a Certified Aging In Place Specialist (CAPS) and Certified Environmental Access Consultant (CEAC) because they have a trained eye for many types of safety-related issues.
Although they may seem safe, every home has potential hazards that we aren’t aware of until an accident or incident occurs.
National Council on Aging indicates 1 in 4 older Americans falls every year. Many fall multiple times. Not only that, but falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries for people aged 65+. Falls often result in hip fractures, other broken bones and head injuries. Guess what? Most falls happen in the home!
Can’t I just do the home evaluation myself?
“I know what I need. Why can’t I do it myself?” Many people attempt this route, but overlook some things related to the home because it has always been that way and “I’m used to it”. Those things are oftentimes the worst hazards. Because a skill set matters, you wouldn’t hire an electrician to do plumbing work, the same goes for the professional skill set of a home safety evaluator vs a homeowner who might be unknowingly tempted to skip over some things that seem “normal.”
Through careful and thorough observation of each living space in a home, a professional home safety evaluation identifies the potential hazards and makes recommendations for solutions to those hazards. A typical home safety evaluation can be completed within 1-2 hours. A written report identifying the hazards and solutions is provided within a couple days of the evaluation.
Most often there are simple solutions to correct potential hazards and allow people to remain in their homes safely and comfortably with functional accessibility for the long term.
Read more:
How to modify your home for a mobility-challenged loved one
