The Safe Living Guide

This guide is intended to give seniors ideas about accident and injury prevention in and around the home. The first section includes a home safety checklist, suggestions regarding various consumer products that can add to one's personal safety, and ideas for renovation planning. Section two discusses how personal lifestyles can be modified to reduce risk of injury by examining physical activity, attitudes, and the use of medications. The guide also contains stories showing how people benefited from making changes in their homes or in their lives. Practical information in the form of fact sheets and tips, as well as a resource section, complete the guide.

It is often said "it takes a village to raise a child." The same can be said about helping an elder age at home. Perhaps not a village, but certainly a family. Caregiving at home has proven its value in offsetting the high costs of in-facility healthcare, and at the same time, improving the quality of life for many elders. However, educational training and support for caregivers has been in short supply. The focus of this book is to help you as a family caregiver create a safe living space and conditions to support an elder living semi-independently in the community or adapting your family household to support an elder as a member of your family. Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home is a compilation of safety tips, and sage advice to help support an elder in aging semi-independently and safely. This is a book meant to be read, and then put into action. A downloadable home safety inspection sheet is provided so you can complete an elder's home inspection, or yours for that matter. There is also a companion workbook to this book entitled Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home - Companion Workbook available that may make your task a little easier. As a recently retired Registered Nurse of over 40 years, author Rae A. Stonehouse has worked predominantly in the field of mental health/psychiatry. He has experience working with all ages of adults including the elderly in senior's facilities, psychogeriatric units, mental health facilities and in the community. While working as a Registered Nurse, Rae A. Stonehouse was actively involved with occupational Health & Safety in his workplaces. That experience has been beneficial in developing his skills to take an analytical look at a home's potential safety hazards and to provide strategies to rectify those hazards to make it safe for an elder to live there. Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home begins with an overview of home safety. Then it provides a strategic method of completing an assessment of the home's safety status and develop strategies to rectify the problems or hazards to make the home safe. The book goes on to address elder driving safety. How to face the issue with your aging elder. Financial scams targeting the elderly is discussed. The final section addresses maintaining your elder's ongoing health and welfare and day-to-day healthcare supervision. With the Covid-19 pandemic in full force at the time of publishing this book, many families are considering alternatives to institutions for their elderly loved ones. This book can help determine if supporting your elderly loved one in the community or in your home is not only feasible, but safe for you and your elder.

It is often said "it takes a village to raise a child." The same can be said about helping an elder age at home. Perhaps not a village, but certainly a family. Caregiving at home has proven its value in offsetting the high costs of in-facility healthcare, and at the same time, improving the quality of life for many elders. However, educational training and support for caregivers has been in short supply. The focus of this book is to help you as a family caregiver create a safe living space and conditions to support an elder living semi-independently in the community or adapting your family household to support an elder as a member of your family. Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home is a compilation of safety tips, and sage advice to help support an elder in aging semi-independently and safely. This is a book meant to be read, and then put into action. A downloadable home safety inspection sheet is provided so you can complete an elder's home inspection, or yours for that matter. There is also a companion workbook to this book entitled Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home - Companion Workbook available that may make your task a little easier. As a recently retired Registered Nurse of over 40 years, author Rae A. Stonehouse has worked predominantly in the field of mental health/psychiatry. He has experience working with all ages of adults including the elderly in senior's facilities, psychogeriatric units, mental health facilities and in the community. While working as a Registered Nurse, Rae A. Stonehouse was actively involved with occupational Health & Safety in his workplaces. That experience has been beneficial in developing his skills to take an analytical look at a home's potential safety hazards and to provide strategies to rectify those hazards to make it safe for an elder to live there. Make it Safe! A Family Caregiver's Home Safety Assessment Guide for Supporting Elders@Home begins with an overview of home safety. Then it provides a strategic method of completing an assessment of the home's safety status and develop strategies to rectify the problems or hazards to make the home safe. The book goes on to address elder driving safety. How to face the issue with your aging elder. Financial scams targeting the elderly is discussed. The final section addresses maintaining your elder's ongoing health and welfare and day-to-day healthcare supervision. With the Covid-19 pandemic in full force at the time of publishing this book, many families are considering alternatives to institutions for their elderly loved ones. This book can help determine if supporting your elderly loved one in the community or in your home is not only feasible, but safe for you and your elder.

Older adults can stay healthy longer by avoiding injury at home. As we age, our sense of balance and our vision, hearing, and cognition become less sharp. Aging-related changes greatly increase our risk of injury. In Living Safely, Aging Well, nationally recognized safety expert Dorothy A. Drago spells out how to prevent injury while cooking, gardening, sleeping, driving—and just walking around the house. In the first part of the book, Drago describes the causes of injuries by type—falls, burns, poisoning, and asphyxia—and explains how to decrease the risk of each. She then explores the home environment room by room, pointing out potential hazards and explaining how to avoid them, for example, by installing night lights, eliminating glass coffee tables, and using baby monitors. Lively line drawings make it easy for readers to visualize risks and implement prevention techniques. Living Safely, Aging Well pays special attention to hazards encountered by people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. A chapter devoted to health literacy helps people and caregivers make the best use of the medical care system and a chapter on driving helps evaluate when it is no longer safe to be behind the wheel.

Be prepared with today's best, up-to-date advice on first aid, home safety, natural disasters, emergencies, and more with this complete family guide. Includes an Introduction by Randall C. Duncan, director of Emergency Management in Sedgwick County, Kansas.

"This guide is for seniors, their family members, care-givers, friends, and anyone else who may find it useful. It is not meant to include everything but tries to answer some common concerns when it comes to seniors' safety and security. The goal is to raise awareness of seniors' safety issues to improve their quality of life. The information in this guide can also be used to help people and their loved ones discuss this topic to help recognize a potential crime situation and show how to reduce or remove the risk"--Page 2.