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Knowing how to decorate the home best suits their needs as their mother or father grows older can be challenging. In a way, it feels as though senior-proofing their living space is the safest way to ensure they can maintain their independence even as they get older. So, you may wonder whether area rugs are safe for seniors.
Area rugs are unsafe for seniors because they may be a tripping hazard, especially those bulky, frayed, or curled rugs. Area rugs are dangerous for older adults who struggle with balance and coordination or use canes, walkers, and wheelchairs as mobility aids.
Individuals aged 65 years or older are seniors, and studies have shown that falls and trips are one of the most common causes of emergency room visits for people in this age category. This article will cover why area rugs aren’t ideal for placing in a senior’s home and how else you can furnish a space to make it safe for elderly folks to navigate.
Why Area Rugs Are Unsafe for the Elderly
It would help if you didn’t lay an area rug in your elderly parent’s home. That’s because if a senior person experiences a fall, many additional consequences can result.
Rugs Are Behind Over 45% of Emergency Treatments for US Seniors
Researchers conducted a study on hospital emergency departments between 2001-2008. The study found that out of over 37,000 annual senior accidents, almost 45% of the accidents were falls caused by rugs. This data is a sobering reflection of the dangers of area rugs in older adults’ homes.
Most of these injuries occurred on the transition point between carpet and rug—or between non-carpeted areas and area rugs.
Older Adults Don’t Lift Their Feet As High
Seniors often adopt a shuffling gait, which can be dangerous with unsecured area rugs. The shuffling gait occurs for several reasons in seniors, including the following:
- Weakened leg and hip muscles
- Lack of joint flexibility
- Arthritis and mobility impairments
- Loss of vision
With the decreased step height, even smaller rugs can be a tripping hazard—and you should remove them from the area.
Older Adults Have Slow Accident Recovery
The older people get, the more fragile their bodies become. Muscles and bones weaken, making subsequent recovery from an injury much more difficult for an older person. So when things around the house, such as area rugs, could cause a fall, removing them from the living space is best.
Injuries Such As Tripping Over a Rug Can Be Psychologically Damaging
An injury for an older person can also be psychologically damaging. For example, suppose a more senior person falls and gets injured. In that case, there may be consequences such as an overall loss of independence, which could bring about feelings of helplessness and anger. These emotions can hurt their self-esteem, quality of life, and feelings of competency.
Area Rugs Affect Seniors’ Balance
Seniors may suffer balance issues for several reasons, including the following:
- Joint stiffness
- Medication
- Neurological conditions
- Inner ear conditions
As these are common conditions in older adults, obstacles such as area rugs may present a falling hazard.
Area rugs can be thick, fluffy, bumpy, or otherwise textured in ways that can throw an individual off-balance, especially if said individual struggles with coordination, balance, mobility, or vision. Seniors using walkers or wheelchairs may have difficulty navigating over or around the area rug, while canes can easily get caught on the rug’s edges.
If a senior suffers serious injury—say, they break their leg—they may need additional care provided by hired professionals or willing family members. Not only that, but some falls can be fatal, so ensuring the space is safe is a top priority.
How To Create a Safe Home Environment
There are many ways to create a safe home environment for an elderly individual, ranging from reducing clutter to ridding bulky furniture around the house. It’s also critical to consider flooring, ensure good lighting and keep pets separate if necessary. Let’s look at some of these fundamental ways of senior-proofing a space.
Consider the Type Of Area Rug
If you need to keep an area rug or a mat somewhere in the senior’s space, make sure that the bottom of the carpet has non-slip material, like Gorilla Grip. This feature will ensure that the rug stays in place and doesn’t slide around the floor. It’s also necessary to ensure the area rug isn’t excessively bulky or curled at the edges.
However, even secured area rugs present a risk to your older loved one and we don’t recommend their use in a senior person’s environment.
Additionally, the senior can wear sneakers, slippers, or socks with grips on the bottom to help prevent those types of falls.
Bathroom mats and other small floor mats are also hazardous for elderly folks. Studies have shown that these mats almost always increase the risk of a severe injury (like hip fracturing). Again, if a rug is necessary, ensure it has a grip on the bottom for safety purposes.
Remove any tripping hazards on the floor (like an area rug). Not only that, though, but consider the actual flooring. It can be especially challenging for a senior to navigate if it’s uneven or slippery. According to the AARP, when you move through a doorway and feel the surface of the floor change (from hardwood to tile, for example), the uneven surface can be a hazard.
Improve Lighting Conditions
The older we get, the worse our eyesight becomes—I learned this from my father and grandfather, who seem to get thicker glasses each year. Naturally, with poor vision, a good set of lighting conditions in a senior’s living space should help them see where they’re going—and dramatically decrease the chances of a trip or fall.
The Maz-Tek Plug-in Dimmable LED Night Light (available on Amazon.com) is a simple light that can plug into the hallway outlets to provide some light for an older adult who needs to get up in the middle of the night. Investing in bright ceilings and bathroom lights is also wise to aid visibility. Sensor lights are another excellent option that turns on whenever they detect motion.
Reduce Clutter in the Home
The first thing to do is reduce clutter in a senior living space. If there are lots of items on the floor or in any common walking areas, they pose a tripping risk to the elderly individual. Reducing clutter and ridding the area of unnecessary items is an efficient way to help keep a senior safe.
Many furniture pieces are on the market today for storage and organization purposes. For example, the Funlax Cube Storage Organizer (available on Amazon.com) is a shelving unit with medium-sized cloth bins for each cube. It can hold all the extraneous knick-knacks or tripping hazards to ensure your senior loved one remains safe.
You don’t necessarily have to buy a giant storage cube to reduce clutter. You can also:
- Donate any unused items. When I’m decluttering, I ask myself– in the past 365 days, how often have I used this item? More often than not, the answer is, ‘I haven’t used it in years!’ Donate anything the senior does not want or need—which is a surefire way of clearing up a room.
- Use bookshelves or other furniture items with storage. A coffee table with a few drawers can be handy and aesthetically pleasing. Bookshelves, a desk, or even shelves mounted to the wall could help reduce the clutter on the floor.
- Rent a storage unit. If the senior’s space contains large items, you can move them to a storage unit to make room in the individual’s home. You need to pay for monthly storage units, so a garage is also a suitable (and free) place to store items.
Regardless of how you choose to do it, reducing clutter will minimize the chances of an older person tripping over anything on the floor.
Keep the Pets Out of Senior’s Way
Pets are excellent companions for the elderly, especially if they’ve been in the family for a long time. However, as loving as they can be, pets can also be risky around the house; small cats and dogs might go unseen by an older adult whose eyesight may also fail due to old age.
Of course, it wouldn’t be right to disown a family pet, and not many places will tell an older adult to give up their beloved Spot or Mr. Meow. What’s important, though, is that the pets are kept out of the older adult’s way when they make their way through the home. Mounted pet gates, like Ciays Extra Wide Dog Gate (available on Amazon.com), are incredibly beneficial for controlling which areas pets can access.
Install Assistive Devices in the Home
Assistive devices are various tools installed and used around the home to help with mobility, like bars and railings. You could install an assistive bar for someone to hold onto in areas with uneven flooring or bumpy rugs that might pose a risk of falling. The same goes for bathrooms, staircases, and balcony stairs.
An excellent service that you’ve likely heard of before is the Lifeline services which offer emergency help at the push of a button that an older individual can carry with them. Another option is to ensure the person is carrying a mobile phone or has a landline phone in an easily accessible spot to call for help if necessary.
Another helpful option is the Aging In Place Home Care Service. This America-based organization provides services to the elderly such as the following:
- Health and personal care
- Day programs
- Transportation
- Household maintenance
These modifications include the assistive devices mentioned above and things like ramps or chair lifts for any staircases that might pose a challenge for the elderly.
Encourage the Senior To keep Fit
Finally, the experts suggest having older adults work out regularly to maintain their body strength. Workouts don’t have to be excessively difficult—your grandfather certainly doesn’t need to be deadlifting weights, but simple exercises (like walking daily) can help keep the body in the best shape possible.
When our bodies are in good shape, we’re less likely to experience falls or trips, and simultaneously, recovery is much faster if an accident does happen. Some more great workouts for the elderly are:
- Yoga. As a practicing yogi, I can attest to how much better balanced I am on my feet after just a few months of regular yoga. Although I’m not yet a senior, yoga is highly beneficial for strength, balance, flexibility, and coordination.
- Water aerobics. Water aerobics is another tremendous strength-building exercise because it uses slowed movement in the water as resistance. It’s also a great activity to build friendships!
- Pilates. Pilates is a physical exercise similar to yoga that incorporates strength training and breathing techniques to create a fulfilling workout. Professional instructors guide older adults through age-appropriate movements to build their balance and strength.
- Use stretching and in-place exercises. Older adults can perform these simple exercises against a wall, using a kitchen chair, or even sitting down. Some examples would be shoulder rolls, wall push-ups, and leg raises. This website offers excellent exercise tips for the elderly to practice daily to improve strength and balance.
Whatever exercise is decided upon, working out is critical for those aged 65 or older to keep their bodies strong and healthy for as long as possible. Seniors should avoid strenuous exercises that may harm their fragile bodies.
The best thing to do is discuss the most appropriate physical exercise with a physician. Everyone has unique capacities, so the amount and type of activity for one person might look different than it does for another.
The bedroom must be a safe place for the elderly. But what exactly do you need to do? I recommend reading my complete guide on making a bedroom safe. 14 Ways to Make a Bedroom Safe for the Elderly
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, area rugs aren’t exceptionally safe for seniors because they pose a tripping hazard. Seniors have more difficulty navigating uneven terrain due to the aging process or mobility devices. Still, you can do many things to ensure seniors are as safe as possible in their living environment.
By reducing clutter, removing bulky items from walkways, using assistive devices, and ensuring good lighting in the home, a senior should have a much easier time navigating their living space safely!
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