Creative Tips for Organizing Your Senior's Home

Being an effective family caregiver for an elderly adult is about more than just helping them to manage their health challenges and issues. It is also about encouraging them to live their best life as they age in place, and part of that is ensuring a comfortable, accessible, and healthy home environment. Getting organized is a way to make their home easier for them to navigate and use, to eliminate some dangers and challenges, and to help them be more independent in their space. This is particularly important if your senior has recently downsized and is just trying to get used to a smaller space. Effective organization can help your loved one deal with issues such as mobility problems, arthritis, and even Alzheimer's disease, and continue to utilize their home easily and comfortably.

Use these creative tips to organize your seniors home:

• If your senior has a small kitchen, try freeing up cabinet space and make cooking easier by using hooks to hang pots and pans on walls, or the sides of cabinets. This can make them more easily accessible, and can also free up space for neater and more readily usable cabinets
• Make the most of storage space, such as in a garage, by installing a sturdy shelving or racks from the ceiling. This allows you to easily store items that don't need to be readily accessed, such as seasonal decorations, and frees up more accessible space for those items your parent needs to get to more quickly
• Free up more closet space, and also make getting dressed in the morning easier, by doubling up on hangers. Use sturdy wooden hangers and slip the pop tab from a soda can on to one hanger. This provides a slot you can then put a second hanger into. Use this method to put together outfits so your parent can quickly choose something to wear without challenging decision making
• Keep drawers neat and tidy with pieces of PVC pipe. Have them cut down to a length that will fit in your senior's drawer and line them up. You can then store small clothing items such as socks, undershirts, and underwear in the pipes. This makes it easy to keep these items organized, and can further simplify getting ready in the morning by storing each of the items you will need in one individual pipe so they just need to take what's there. Consider painting the pipes to add a pop of color and interest that will boost your senior's mood each time they see it 

Helping your elderly parent keep their home clean and organized can be one of the most beneficial services of a senior care provider. A senior home care services provider can help your loved one manage home tasks such as laundry, dishes, tidying, and taking out the trash to keep their home as comfortable and healthy as possible. For a senior dealing with mobility issues, this can mean a more comfortable and safe home environment, and also the opportunity to maintain more of their independence and assist with tasks in their own way, and on their own schedule.

IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE ARE CONSIDERING HIRING SENIOR CARE IN OLD TOWN, IL, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT BRIGHTSTAR CARE CHICAGO. CALL TODAY: 312.382.8888.