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Falls are a common but overlooked cause of injury. According to GOV.UK, around one in three adults over 65 and half of people over 80 have at least one fall a year. So, if you find yourself worrying about the risk of you or a loved one taking a fall, you aren’t alone. In fact, a survey commissioned by Age UK found that falling was the greatest concern of 4.3 million people in the UK.
The consequences of falling can also become more serious with age, particularly if you have a long-term health condition like heart disease, dementia, or low blood pressure, which can cause dizziness and loss of consciousness.
With that said, we’ve put together a short list of five tips for fall-proofing your home.
What are the consequences of falling?
The main consequence of falling is, of course, injury. And while the majority of falls don’t lead to serious injury or death, the CDC states that 37% of those who fall reported an injury that required medical treatment or affected their daily life.
Between 2022 and 2023, fall-related emergency hospital admissions among patients over 65 reached around 210,000 in England, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that falls are the second-leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide.
But the consequences of falls aren’t limited to physical harm. They can also have several social and psychological effects. For example, when someone suffers a serious fall, it’s common for them to experience a loss of confidence due to a fear of it happening again.
Studies show that sufferers of falls can become less active and more withdrawn, which can negatively impact their strength and balance and may increase the risk of future falls as a result.
Falls can also cause low self-esteem and increased feelings of anxiety and frustration about a potential loss of independence.
What can someone do to prevent a fall?
It’s worth bearing in mind that it only takes one fall to have serious consequences – so it’s never too late to start thinking about how you can protect yourself or your loved ones.
Overall health is the first thing to consider, as this can affect the risk of falling and how likely a person is to suffer a serious injury as a result.
With this in mind, it’s generally advised for someone who’s concerned about falling to stay as active as possible to maintain and improve their strength and balance. There’s a wide range of exercises and activities that can help with this, such as yoga and Tai Chi.
Research also shows that between 30% and 50% of falls are caused by environmental factors, such as poor visibility and trip hazards. And since 60% of these happen at home, it can be a good idea to consider how you can make your or your relative’s living space as fall-proof as possible.
Supporting independence at home
As mobility changes, it can become challenging for you or a loved one to move around the home with ease.
Improving accessibility often involves small, practical changes that reduce strain and make it easier to get from room to room. For some people, a stairlift can help keep everyday routines safe and make it easier to enjoy every floor of your home.
5 tips for fall-proofing a home
1. Consider investing in non-slip mats and treads
When fall-proofing a home, it can be helpful to start by thinking about floor surfaces – particularly the bathroom.
The bathroom is the most dangerous room in the house. In fact, according to research, more than a third of injuries happen while washing or showering, and falls in the bathroom are more than twice as likely to cause injury compared to places like the living room. This is mainly due to slippery, hard surfaces like tiled floors and porcelain baths and showers. So, it often helps to modify these surfaces with things like non-slip mats to help prevent falls.
Some non-slip mats are made to be placed inside the shower or bath, and others are meant to sit on the floor outside of it. So, if you’re particularly concerned about yourself or your loved one falling in the bathroom, it might be worth investing in one of each. This will help provide some traction when getting in and out of the bath or shower and moving across surfaces, even with wet feet.
Because non-slip mats don’t move as easily as regular mats, you might also want to consider using them throughout the rest of your home. For example, you could place non-slip mats under any loose rugs to prevent them from sliding around.
If you or your loved one has stairs inside the house or out in the garden, you can also use anti-slip tread. These are adhesive strips of grippy material that can be stuck to surfaces like wood or concrete to give you some extra traction. They can also help to distinguish each step more easily, which can reduce the risk of missing one and tripping.
2. Install handrails and grab bars where helpful
Like bathrooms, stairways are another part of a person’s home that can be particularly risky for falls. This is because it’s easier to trip on a staggered floor and to end up falling further than on a level floor.
By installing handrails on both sides of the stairs and using them when travelling up and down, balance can be greatly improved, and the impact of any falls lessened.
Grab bars can also be installed in baths, showers, and beside toilets to help with standing up and sitting down.
Though it may seem obvious, it’s important to make sure they’re properly installed and in good condition. So if you don’t feel confident installing them yourself, or you don’t know anyone who can, it’s best to get a professional to do it.
You can search for handyperson services here on the Age UK website.
3. Think about the lighting
Poor visibility is a common cause of falls in and around the home, especially for those with poor eyesight. Luckily, there are a wide variety of lighting solutions that you can implement throughout the home to prevent tripping up in the dark.
If you’re worried about yourself or someone you know falling, it’s best to make sure that spaces are brightly lit – particularly in more dangerous areas like the bathroom, stairs, and kitchen.
This may involve using the highest-wattage lightbulb for your fixtures (most light fixtures have this number written on them). Alternatively, for long-lasting light that also conserves as much energy as possible, you can try a compact fluorescent or LED bulb.
Many falls occur when people wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed to use the bathroom or get a glass of water. So, it’s worth keeping a lamp or nightlight by the bed, in the bathroom, and even in the hallway between the two. It’s also a good idea to keep a torch by the bed in case of a power outage.
Other popular lighting solutions include making sure there are light switches at either end of stairs and long hallways, as well as using glow-in-the-dark light switch plates or stickers. These don’t require any energy to light and help people find light switches in the dark.
4. Try to limit clutter and keep walkways clear
Throughout our lives, we tend to collect a lot of stuff, and tripping on clutter is a common cause of falls. So making sure walkways are clear is important when thinking about you or your loved one’s safety around the home.
Between chargers, cables, extension leads, the modern household has lots of wires knocking around, which can be a dangerous trip hazard.
Try to put cables, like phone chargers, away after use. If this isn’t possible, you can use cable clips or tubing to pin wires to skirting board and keep them tucked away.
It can also help to keep furniture and other fixtures well out of the way of walkways, as furniture like low coffee tables and chairs can become tripping hazards. And if you’re buying new furniture, try to be mindful about your purchases because some can pose more of a risk than others. Glass furniture, for instance, can be more difficult to see.
Another trip hazard that we tend to forget about is our pets. Dogs, cats, and other small animals can often get under our feet and cause falls. One way to reduce the risk of pet-related falls is to make sure they have a bell on their collar. This will make it easier for you or your loved one to know if your furry friend is around.
5. Be mindful about moving around the home
Being mindful of how you move around and interact with your home can also help reduce your risk of falling. For example, lots of people tend to walk around barefoot at home.
However, according to research, going barefoot (or even wearing socks or slippers) may actually lead to a higher risk of falling. Instead, experts recommend wearing a well-fitting shoe with a low heel and slip-resistant sole at home. This can prevent both falls and a wide range of foot-related conditions, so it’s a win-win.
Other things to consider are cleaning up spillages straight away, as well as making regularly used items easily accessible. Lots of falls result from people straining to get things from high or difficult-to-reach places, such as high kitchen cabinets.
If you or a loved one needs to regularly reach for things that are in awkward places, consider investing in a reacher grabber. Or ask a friend, relative, or neighbour for help.
Final thoughts…
Whether you’re thinking about safety for yourself or a loved one, facing the risk of falling can be incredibly daunting and uncomfortable.
However, we hope that these five tips have provided help in upgrading your home to reduce the risk or lessen the impact of taking a fall. Or, perhaps they’ve simply provided food for thought on how to best customise your home in a way that works best for you.
For further reading, you can find more helpful tips in our articles: How to declutter and reorganise your home or 8 home security gadgets to keep your property safe.
Is falling a concern of yours? If so, what steps have you taken to reduce the risk? We’d be interested to hear from you in the comments below.
* Links with an * by them are affiliate links which help Rest Less stay free to use as they can result in a payment or benefit to us. You can read more on how we make money here.
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