18 Affordable Senior Aging and Safety Hacks

Our daily lives are full of small annoyances. Hitting your knee on a sharp corner or feeling back pain when picking up the newspaper is not fun. But as we age, these small annoyances can become dangerous accidents. Fortunately, Alert1 has the best senior hacks to avoid these accidents and make your life safer and easier.

Hacks are strategies for managing your time and activities more efficiently. Wearing rubber gloves when opening a jar or using a pants hanger to hang a recipe are two hack examples.

Without further ado, here are Alert1’s favorite senior aging hacks.

1. Give your keys a manicure and remember which key unlocks what. Put a spot of colored nail polish on your key to indicate what each key unlocks. The color coordination jogs your memory and helps easily locate each key. To spice things up, ask your granddaughter for colorful nail polish.
2. Get to those hard to reach places with an extension grabber. Forget the stool and use your extension grabber for that sweater from the top shelf. An extension grabber is a metal or plastic pole with a claw attached to the end of it. When you squeeze the handle, the claw opens and closes on the item you need.
3. Let there be light by investing in automatic lights. Why waste time scrambling in the dark when you could be traveling room-to-room carefree? Automatic lights turn on during nighttime, and are great for rooms with light switches far from the door.
4. Repurpose your hanging shoe rack for cleaning supplies. When it’s time to clean, you want to be quick to the scene, not struck with an achy back. Instead of digging under the sink, hang up your tile cleaner. This makes for a faster clean up and less back pain.
5. Save your shoes with a long handled shoehorn. Alleviate strain on your lower body and keep your favorite pair of shoes looking fresh! A shoehorn will save the backs of shoes and makes putting them on quick and easy.
6. Toss out your rugs to avoid falls. Rugs look nice in your entryway, but turn into a tripping hazard down the hall. Stop tripping and remove the rugs. If you do fall, Alert1’s home fall detection will contact help.

1. Get a grip by wrapping rubber bands around your cups. Why cry over spilt milk when you could stop the milk from spilling in the first place? Take a rubber band from your newspaper and wrap it around your favorite cup. This will improve grip and prevent cups from slipping out of your hand.
2. Jazz up your fridge with a Lazy Susan. It’s common to have a Lazy Susan in your cabinet. Why not the fridge too? A Lazy Susan will keep your condiments organized and easily accessible. Just rotate it and any item will be within easy reach.   
3. Use rubber gloves to loosen up tight jars. A pair of dishwashing gloves or rubber padded work gloves are best. Rubber gloves create friction, which makes opening bottles and jars a breeze.
4. Stop overflowing boiling water with a wooden spoon. Place a wooden spoon across your pot to keep it from boiling over. When the starchy water boils, the bubbles touch the spoon and burst before they cause overflow.
5. Hold your recipe at eye level with a pants hanger. Find an available cabinet handle and clip your recipe into place. No need to worry about spilling food on your cookbook when it’s safely hanging out of the way.
6. Prevent slippage with a wet paper towel under the cutting board. Chopping vegetables is a precise task that requires concertation. Insert a wet paper towel underneath a cutting board to keep it from slipping. Your fingers will thank you. 

1. Soften up your sharp furniture corners with moldable putty. Banging your knees on the coffee table is the last thing you want. Moldable putty or foam insulators work wonderfully for cushioning sharp furniture corners. Protect your legs and prevent unnecessary damage to yourself and your furniture.
2. Stay safe with a medical alert device. Falls are common as we age. Invest in a medical alert fall detection system. Alert1 offers in-home and mobile fall detection to keep you safe at home and on the go. We also have many stylish accessories to check out.
3. Request non-childproof caps on medicine bottles. If your grandchildren aren’t visiting anytime soon, ask your pharmacist for non-childproof caps. No need to strain your hands struggling to open pill bottles.
4. Get a hold of yourself and mount grab bars around house. As we age, railings and handles become a must-have. Add grab bars to your bathroom first, since the bathroom is the most common room for falls.
5. Ramp it up! Add wheelchair ramps to your house entryways. Even if you aren’t in a wheelchair, a ramp makes getting around much safer. Not only are stairs hard on the knees, they are a fall hazard as well.  Your house now has ramps, but not all places do. Stay protected while on the go with Alert1’s mobile fall detection.   
6. Sit comfortably by replacing low sitting toilet seats with higher ones. In addition to grab bars, a raised toilet seat will improve your bathroom safety. We recommend a seat with grab bars to keep your balance when standing up.

You can’t stop aging, but you can improve your quality of life and make aging-in-place better. Invest in mounted handrails and automatic lights. Remove the rugs in your home to avoid falls. A Lazy Susan and shoe hangers conveniently store your kitchen and cleaning supplies. These hacks make getting around the house safer and stress-free.

There are hundreds of senior aging hacks out there. Do you have a favorite aging-in-place hack? Post a comment below and let us know! 

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