Tips for Preparing Your Home for an Alzheimer’s Patient?

AlzheimersNotes.com 

   I didn’t have time to prepare our home for Mother.  When I discovered her wandering in the snow one morning when I visited her home (I couldn’t find her when I arose and then discovered she’d circumvented the lock on the door and was looking outside for her cat), I had to move her to our home a month earlier than planned.

However, since my husband and I had been making weekly trips to her home 275 miles away and staying for 2 or 3 days, I had some idea what I had to do when Mother came to live with us.  If I’d had a checklist of items to prepare, though, it certainly would have helped.

In addition to the book above, A Complete Guide to Alzheimer’s Proofing Your Home, by Mark L. Warner, I discovered at Home and Family, a great article about Preparing Your Home for Caregiving by Maria Sandella.  She provides tips in a number of categories:

• Common living areas
• Kitchen
• Bathroom
• Bedroom
• General Safety
• Special equipment that you may need

While this may seem like a lot of work on your part in order to get your home ready it really isn’t, Ms. Sandella says when she completes the check-list of suggestions.

 Go through each room one at a time and make a list of things that need to be done, based on your loved ones disability or illness. You may find you are more prepared to be a caregiver than you thought you were.

Do you have any home preparation tips that have helped you.  Let’s share!

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen