Finding the Most Accessible Home to Support Older Relatives
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The perfect home is the one in which you and the people you love are the most comfortable. Even if it’s not the biggest or the most glamorous, being able to support everybody in your family equally well plays a huge part in maintaining family bonding and mutual respect. Finding the home that best suits this idea can be a challenge, however, especially if we’re approaching the idea without significant planning under our belts.
Fortunately, understanding the best kind of home to support your family isn’t as difficult as it might first appear. Take the following components into account, and you’ll find yourself far more ready to help your loved ones as they age, and the eventual greater needs that they might have.
The Elements to Focus On
The exact changes you’ll need to make to your home will depend on the needs of your older relatives and their physical limitations. There are a lot of options here, so consider what they’ll need now and what they might require in the future. Common installations include:
- Widening areas for improved wheelchair access
- Support rails in bathrooms and toilets
- Moving bedrooms and bathrooms to the ground floor
- Modifying lighting for family members with visual limitations
- Implement smart home systems that can be adjusted via smartphones
- Change door knobs to door handles
- Ensure mats, rugs, and showers are slip-resistant
- Check any tripping hazards like internet cables and replace them with in-wall systems
While these cover the necessities, it can also be a good idea to set up better systems for entertainment and hobbies. If your family member loves to cook but finds it difficult to stand or stoop for long periods, you might invest in a comfortable chair and table they can work from. The same applies to craft stations, where everything should be made accessible without requiring access to taller shelves.
Potential for a Move
Modifications to your home to help ageing relatives will almost always be necessary to some degree, but not all houses are well-suited to these changes. Your home might be too old to modify easily, for example, or its location might make adding upgrades difficult or expensive. In this case, moving to a more modification-friendly environment might be a better idea.
Traditional real estate agents can help, but there are also modern alternatives if you’re in a hurry or are just chasing a more streamlined experience. These can help sell a house for free with no hidden fees. Also, letting you sell in your timeframe can be a strong fit if the perfect new home becomes available unexpectedly, so you can move ahead with helping out your ageing family member.
Modifying a home for older family members doesn’t just help them physically, the benefits are far beyond that. It can help improve moods, help them achieve better independence, and set your home up to help you more in the future if needed, too. It takes a little work, but the long-term benefits can easily be worth it, so don’t overlook taking this option seriously.
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