Making Home a Safer Place, Affordably
Source: nytimes.com / Lesley Alderman
Am I safe in my home? That’s the question many older people ponder as they move into their 70’s and beyond.
Most older people settle on staying put, according to a recent survey by the Home Safety Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing home-related injuries. Staying put makes economic sense.
It is not only more comfortable to live out your life in your own home, it’s much more affordable. The average fee at an assisted-living facility – a place where older people live independently but also receive a host of services like medication management and meals, is $34,000. And in the nation’s most expensive metropolitan areas, including New York, the costs may be closer to $70,000.
But while home might be cozier and cheaper than a residential center, it’s not always safer. Every year in this country about 7,000 elderly persons die in home-related accidents, and millions are seriously injured. Falls are the leading cause of injuries, but the elderly are also at risk for being burned by the stove, scaled by hot water or drowning in the tub.
The home environment can be a great support to independent living, or it can be a health care hazard. After Maryann Connelly’s mother fell and hurt herself two years ago, Ms. Connelly considered moving her to an assisted living facility.
But the mother, Catherine Fisher, who is in her 80s and has lived on her own for over 18 years, had a two word response: “No Way!” – even though her rheumatoid arthritis made it difficult to walk up and down stairs and get in and out of chairs.
So, Ms. Connelly and her siblings hired an occupational therapist to modify Ms. Fisher’s two-story townhouse to make it safer and easier for her to navigate. The therapist added, among other things, an electric stair lift and grab bars throughout the house. The total cost, for the therapist’s fee, equipment and installation, was $4,500.
As Ms. Connelly learned, an entire service industry is slowly taking shape around the goal of letting people age in place. If you want to make your own home or an older relative or friend’s home a safer, more supportive place to live, here are basic guidelines to the most efficient and cost-effective approaches.
Take Stock: Learn where the potential hazards lie and how you can reduce them. For starters, go to the Home Safety Council’s site, MySafeHome.net, and take the house tour, which points out possible dangers room by room. Many of the changes the site suggests are simple and inexpensive, like removing area rugs and installing brighter bulbs in hallways. AARP also has an interactive home safety checklist created with the National Association of Homebuilders.
Professional Assessment: If you have multiple medical issues, say arthritis and poor vision, ask your doctor for a referral to an occupational therapist (OT as they are known), who specializes in home modifications. An OT can also supply you with an invoice that lists the medical necessity of each improvement, a document that you might need to get reimbursed, say, from a long-term care insurer.
Long Term Care Coverage: If you were far-sighted enough to have such a policy, call your insurance agent and ask whether home modifications are covered under your plan and what documentation you need to be reimbursed. A policy will not pay for upgrades if you are still healthy. In general, regular health insurance does not cover physical upgrades to the home, though it often will pay for an occupational therapist to come in and do an assessment.
Tapping Home Equity: If you want to make substantial changes to your home, but don’t have the cash to pay for them, consider getting information on ways to tap into your home equity. A website that offers information is : www.LongTermCare.gov , a site run by the Department of Health and Human Services. You can also consider discussing other options with a financial planner such as reverse mortgages. Be sure you carefully consider all options before making final decisions. Some of these options carry substantial fees. Your local department of aging also has information that may be helpful for elders. Use the federal government’s elder care locator – www.eldercare.gov to find your local office, or call 800-677-1116.
There are many options surfacing that are created specifically to help older people and their caregivers make choices that will ensure the elders safety and to help people stay safely at home longer.
For more information regarding the options offered by Elderwood Senior Care, please contact us at 716-633-3900.
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