I often blog about remodeling to make the bathroom safer for a senior who is not as mobile as they once were, but today I’m turning to another challenge that affects all seniors—aging eyes.
What happens to aging eyes?
First, the pupil gets smaller. What does a smaller pupil mean to elderly people?
If you put a 20-year old and an 80-year-old in the same sun-splashed room in the middle of the day, the youngster’s eye will receive six times the amount of light. It’s almost as if the senior is wearing sunglasses indoors.
It gets worse. Now imagine the 20 year-old and 80-year-old person are up in the middle of the night navigating their way to the bathroom with little or no light. The young adult’s eyes are now receiving sixteen times as much light as the senior’s eyes. No wonder seniors lose their confidence about driving at night, and getting around the home can be equally tricky.
I write a lot about how to modify bathrooms, the most dangerous room in the home, to prevent seniors from falling. But seniors will still fall because with age comes a natural decline in health.
Seniors may have cognitive, balance or mobility issues. Perhaps they have neurological problems associated with a stroke or Parkinson’s disease. Pain from arthritis could affect how they move. Even a dangerous cocktail of medications could compromise their balance.
So here’s the scenario. Granny steps out of a warm, relaxing bath and onto the wet, slippery tiles. Her feet take on a life of their own, escaping from underneath her as she plunges to the ground, landing smack on her posterior and narrowly avoiding a broken hip. Now what?
