Safety Tips for the Elderly on a Wheelchair
If you have a member in the family who is already in the senior years, you must learn about the specific things that you must do in order to provide elder care. They are very prone to accidents and they need assistance and constant reminder of what they must do because there physical and mental capacity is not what it used to be when they were young.
Part of the care that you must do to the elderly is to give them proper instructions. Like for instance, if they are using a stun baton for safety and at the same time as a supportive device, you must properly instruct them on what to do with it when the need for its use arises.
Proper instructions are most especially important especially when it comes to wheelchair safety. Some of the elderly may have limited mobility that is why there is a need to use a wheelchair. If you are taking care of a family member on a wheelchair, you must make sure to provide these instructions which are also best for their safety.
The first thing that you must stress to them is on the use of brakes of the wheelchair. You must tell them to double check if they have locked their brakes especially when they are pausing for a while at an incline. Aside from that, when they need to transfer to a chair or to their bed, brakes must be applied as well.
You must tell them to accept their limitations and to seek for help from anyone in the house when they think that they will not be able to maneuver the wheelchair alone. As a caregiver, you must also assess for such needs so that you will prevent them from pushing too hard beyond their own capacity.
If possible, you must remind them to keep themselves visible at all times. When using the wheelchair at night, they must have something that will help alarm vehicles and other people of their presence. Stumbling upon them can lead to accidents. It can even be more dangerous when you will collide with a running vehicle.
In addition to that, it is very important that your elderly parent knows what to do especially when it comes to reaching for objects. They must not reach for such objects when they need to move at the edge of the chair or bend forward because this can cause them to fall. They must remember to stay as close as possible to the thing that they want to get.
Lastly, you must locate the ramps where you can safely pass and ask for assistance especially when you need to climb up a stair or follow a curb. You will not be able to do it alone safely. Handicap ramps are available in almost all establishments or when at the house, you can make use of the lift if there is one installed.
These are the things that you must remember especially when it comes to safety. It does not only involve about stressing to them the stun gun effectiveness and the use of other devices but the safe use of the wheelchair also matters especially for the elderly who are already incapable when it comes to mobility.
Author Bio: Joseph Pressley is a certified TASER instructor and a Tae Kwon Do black belt and a father of two. He is the co-founder of BestStunGun.com which provides a good variety of Stun Gun and TASER Guns for personal protection. To learn more on how these products can save your life, please visit http://www.beststungun.com.
Category: Family Concerns
Keywords: Elder care,wheelchair safety,caregiver,elderly parent,stun baton,stun gun effectiveness