Comfort Keepers Home Care Services in San Antonio, TX: Keeping Safe and Preventing Fires for the sake of Seniors
Home care services in San Antonio, TX - learn more about how you can prevent fires in the home of your senior loved one with this advice by Comfort Keepers
The fire situation
The utilization of fires has been done for centuries for a number of reasons; cooking, lighting and as protective barriers. Although fires can be utilized in such amazing ways, Comfort Keepers home care services acknowledges that there are preventable and inevitable fire accidents which mostly affect the elderly. Fires such as wild fires and sudden infernos have been associated with lots of destruction. House fires are also reported in their thousands on an annual basis.
Seniors are usually the most vulnerable group in cases of fire accidents and this has been concern to us as Comfort Keepers home care . Though they comprise about 10% of the population, up to 40% of them are involved in fire accidents due to the risk factors that will be outlined in this article.
Notable risk factors
Old wine is fine but that seems not be the case for the elderly when it comes to responding to fire accidents. The remarkable depreciation in not only their mental but physical capabilities makes them to be more vulnerable. For this reason Comfort Keepers home care services appreciates that their escape from a fire disaster can be disturbingly slow due to their reduced physical abilities. The utilization of the five senses is also greatly diminished and all these account for their predisposed state in case of fire accidents.
In addition, their response is delayed due to an increased reaction time. Changes in the corpus callosum with time tend to affect the physical abilities of the seniors. Most of them are also on medications which make them to drowsy and lesser alert which makes them to be culpable to smoke inhalation.
Although the risk factors mentioned predispose the elderly to the detrimental effects of fire accidents, Comfort Keepers home care services advises you to consider some of the things which cause fires in our homes. Inattention to cooking and accumulation of grease on cooking items could lead to a kitchen fire. Besides these electrical circuit problems, using alternative lighting for instance candles could lead to unexpected fires and so is irresponsible smoking in the kitchen.
To protect the elderly who respond to such accidents in a sluggish way, consider taking a few precautions which are outline below.
Precautions for fire accidents prevention and response
- The use of smoke detectors; smoke detectors are useful in alerting one of a potential fire disaster. They need to be installed in convenient locations such as ceilings, sleeping rooms and in each floor as the need arises. Their maintenance on a regular basis should also be considered; battery replacement and cleaning.
- Developing a response plan; besides having a detector, you should have an intuitive plan of escaping from the fire and containing it. All exits routes should be indicated and alternatives to these together with the use of aids in the escape should be in place.
- Adopt safe cooking practices; kitchen fire accidents should be avoided by taking the necessary precautions such as being keen while cooking, cleaning off the grease and having an ABC fire extinguisher in your room.
- Exercise caution while smoking; responsible cigarette smoking with proper disposal of the hot ashes should be adopted.
- Check your electrical circuits; wiring problems ought to be sorted ASAP and indicators of faults such as dimming lights and loaded circuits need to be addressed too.
