Improving Home Lighting for Dark Winter Months

At SureSafe, we often talk about the importance of home safety for the elderly. That’s for good reason – retired people typically spend more time at home, and the home is a common site for accidents to happen.

In previous posts, we’ve talked about fall-proofing an older person’s home and how to spot fall hazards in the home. In this post, we’ll zero in on one specific cause of falls and other accidents – lighting.

Good lighting is always important for helping seniors to be safe in their homes. But it matters even more during winter, when so many of our waking hours happen while it’s dark.

Read on to learn about how you can upgrade the lighting in your home or an older loved one’s home to increase their safety during the dark winter months.

Why the lighting in an elderly person’s home matters

So, why is the lighting in a home so important for safety? Because good lighting can help avert both falls and other accidents.

Elderly people can have difficulties with mobility such as stiffness from arthritis, and they may also have weaker eyesight. Clear lighting can help seniors know where they can step, and it can allow them to use tools like knives and scissors more safely.

All older people and their families should know that the risk of falls in the elderly is a serious one. A fall can trigger the start of a decline in health that ends with a move to a care home, taking away an older person’s independence. And if a senior can’t get up after a fall, that’s called a long lie, which has additional negative effects.

The bottom line – it’s always best to take precautions to lower an older person’s risk of experiencing a fall.

Lighting around stairwells

Staircases and stairwells can be difficult to light because they span two different floors. However, they’re also a danger zone for falls. Stiffness from conditions like arthritis can make it difficult for seniors to walk up or down a set of stairs, while numbness from diabetes or other conditions means it can be harder for an older person to feel when they’ve placed their feet correctly.

Therefore, you’ll want enough lighting around your stairs to ensure that each step is clearly visible. You might even want to put reflective strips at the edge of each stair to help even further.

Motion-activated lights

We’ve all experienced this situation – you’re walking through a room in the dark, patting the wall until you reach the light switch to put the light on.

That might be ordinary for a younger person. But for an elderly person, this situation isn’t safe. There could be trip hazards that aren’t visible on the floor, for example, and these could cause an older person with poor balance and strength to fall.

That’s where motion-activated lights come in. These handy devices ensure that there’s always lighting wherever a person is moving.

Motion-activated lights can be useful in many parts of the home. They can be handy near the door for seniors who are coming home to a dark, unlit house. They can also be useful in bathrooms in case an older person gets up to go there during the night. And they’re also a good addition in a room where a light switch isn’t reachable – for whatever reason – right by the door.

Nightlights

Like motion-detecting lights, nightlights provide illumination without requiring anyone to fumble their way to a light switch in the dark. Plugged in at baseboard level, they can be a great option to add in hallways to provide continuity of lighting between rooms. They’re also handy, again, if an older person gets up during the night to use the bathroom.

Nightlights and motion-detecting lights can work together to help keep a home illuminated and safe. Motion-detecting lights, of course, work best when lighting limited areas. Since a person needs to be somewhat close to the light to trigger the motion detection, a motion-detecting light wouldn’t be suited to a large area. Nightlights can “fill in the gaps” and provide a lower level of light where motion-detecting lights won’t work.

Smart home technology

There are so many ways in which smart home technology can assist older people. It can help them to remember appointments and grocery lists, for example. It can link together home security features with the convenience of a smart assistant, and it can even work with cameras to help elderly people stay in touch with family members.

But other useful features of smart home technology include lighting. It allows a person to turn on lights without using a switch, simply through voice commands. This could remove the need for some motion-detecting lights, and it can help avoid situations where a person isn’t in exactly the right place to be sensed by the motion detector.

That’s not all, either. A senior can set their smart home system to turn lights on and off at specific times. That makes it even easier for an older person to ensure their way through their home is always well-lit. For example, if an older person is watching TV or eating while the sun goes down, they might get up to find that the room is darker than they had thought. With a smart home system that turns lights on at a predetermined time, that’s no longer an issue.

Good task lighting

There are different kinds of lighting in a home, and task lighting is one that’s often neglected. Just as its name implies, this is the type of lighting that’s intended to provide adequate light for a specific task.

Good task lighting could mean a smaller light in the kitchen that specifically illuminates a place where an older person often cuts food on a chopping board. Or it could be a lamp by the sofa that shines light on an older person’s cross-stitching work.

Whatever the task, it should be well-illuminated in order to avoid accidents occurring while the older person is working. That’s especially true on winter evenings, when there’s no light from the windows that could help.

Another important safety measure

So far, we’ve discussed steps to help reduce the risk of falls and other accidents that happen due to inadequate lighting. Unfortunately, though, it’s not possible to eliminate all risks of this kind.

For increased peace of mind, older people need a way to call for help in case they do have falls or other accidents. This can prevent a fall from turning into a ‘long lie,’ as well as ensuring that help gets to an injured or worried senior fast.

A personal alarm for the elderly is the solution. A one-touch button on a personal alarm just needs to be touched and held down in order to call for help. In other words, if an older person is unwell or injured, it’s far easier for them to use the button than to try to get to a mobile phone. And if the elderly person has fallen onto the floor and needs help getting up, a mobile phone might be out of reach – but the personal alarm they are wearing as a pendant or wrist alarm will still be reachable and usable.

Moreover, an alarm with fall detection is designed to do even more to keep an older person safe. This type of alarm has sensors that check to see whether a person has fallen. If the alarm’s sensors and its algorithm say that its wearer has fallen, the alarm calls for help all by itself – no other actions needed.

Trusted protection from SureSafe

At SureSafe, we’re experts in providing the UK with alarms that have one-touch buttons, automatic fall detection and more.

If you’re looking for peace of mind about accidents or falls on winter evenings, go ahead and call us at 0808 189 1671 or through live chat. You can also request a call back.