When you have a week, not a year

What is fall prevention modifications?

Fall prevention modifications are environmental changes - light, floor surfaces, handholds, level changes and clutter - that remove the situations in which a slip or a stumble turns into a fall. They do not treat the reasons a person is unsteady, which are clinical questions for a doctor or an occupational therapist. When there is a deadline, the useful order is the route to the bathroom, the bathroom itself, and getting in the front door - everything else can wait a fortnight.

Signs you need fall prevention modifications

• A fall has already happened, whether or not anyone was hurt
• A discharge planner has given a date and the family is not sure the house is ready
• Someone is getting up at night and the route to the bathroom is unlit
• There have been near misses that nobody has mentioned out loud
• A walker or a stick is new, and the house was not laid out with one in mind
• A change in medication, vision or strength has altered how confidently someone moves
• Somebody has started sleeping in a chair downstairs rather than facing the stairs

Seeing something not on this list? Browse aging in place problems by symptom →

How fall prevention modifications actually works

1. 1

   Ask what the person will need to do on day one

   Not what the house should ideally be. Specifically: get from the car to the door, through the door, to a bed, to a toilet, to somewhere to wash, and to somewhere to sit and eat. Everything that is not on that list is next month's problem, and treating it as this week's is how households overspend under pressure.

   Watch forA plan that starts with the bathroom remodel. Remodels take weeks. The discharge is on Thursday.

2. 2

   Light the night route first, because it is the cheapest thing that works

   The path from bed to bathroom, lit so it can be used without hunting for a switch, is usually the single highest-value change available in a hurry. Plug-in and battery motion lights need no electrician and no permission, which matters if the person is renting.

   Watch forA single bright ceiling light as the answer. Being dazzled at three in the morning makes the next few steps worse, not better. Low, continuous light along the floor line is what is wanted.

3. 3

   Take out what is loose before you add anything

   Loose rugs and their curled edges, trailing leads, a hallway of stacked objects, a cluttered stair. Removal costs nothing, takes an afternoon and is often more effective than anything on the shopping list - and it is the part a family can do themselves while waiting for tradespeople.

   Watch forRugs taped down as a compromise. Tape lifts, and a half-secured edge is worse than the original. Either the rug goes, or it is properly fixed with a suitable underlay.

4. 4

   Put handholds where the hand already goes

   Watch where somebody currently steadies themselves - the basin, the doorframe, the back of a chair - and put something rated there instead. In a bathroom that means a properly anchored grab bar; on stairs a handrail; sometimes a free-standing pole or a toilet frame that needs no wall at all.

   Watch forBars fixed into plasterboard because time was short. A bar that fails is worse than no bar, and the free-standing alternatives exist precisely for the weeks when you cannot open a wall.

5. 5

   Rent or buy equipment rather than building, for anything that might be temporary

   Shower chairs, transfer benches, raised toilet seats, bed rails, portable ramps, temporary stair rails and rented stair lifts all exist. For a recovery with an expected end, they are the correct answer and they come out afterwards without leaving a trace.

   Watch forBeing sold permanent construction for a temporary situation. This is the pressure point in the whole category, and the reason to ask every seller how long the need is expected to last.

6. 6

   Sort the way in, at least provisionally

   If the front steps cannot be managed on the day, a portable or modular ramp, a temporary rail, or simply using a different door - the garage, the patio, the back door with one shallow step - can bridge the gap while a permanent entry is planned properly.

   Watch forCommitting to a permanent ramp or a regraded entry in the same week as a discharge. It is a considered decision with real design choices, and it will still be there to make in a month.

7. 7

   Refer the questions that are not about the building

   Balance, dizziness, vision, footwear, strength, medication interactions and cognition all bear on falls, and none of them is fixed by a contractor. An occupational therapist assessment and a medication review are the clinical counterparts to this work, and they are where much of the benefit actually sits.

   Watch forAnyone selling modifications who implies their product prevents falls. No modification treats the reasons a person is unsteady. It changes what happens when they are.

What does fall prevention modifications cost?

Urgent work skews cheap: lighting, removing hazards, rated handholds and rented equipment are modest, and they carry most of the immediate benefit. The large numbers belong to bathrooms and entries, which are rarely the right thing to buy in a hurry. See the Cost Guide before committing to construction.

See the full fall prevention modifications cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →

Work out what is urgent and what can wait → Built for households working to a discharge date.