Four Top Accessibility Features All Nursing, retirement homes, and all similar living environments must adopt. Even if their guests currently have full mobility, that’s likely to change at any time.

All it takes is a heart attack or a stroke, and suddenly everything changes. Health concerns only increase as time goes on, which is why all facilities must be as accessible as possible from the get-go to adapt properly to their residents’ changing needs.

Importance of Accessibility

Accessibility is crucial for families to consider when choosing a new home for their parent or grandparent. It’s particularly important if you’re choosing a new home for yourself. The last thing you want is to end up in a terrible environment that combines a lack of accessibility features with inattentive staff. If you’re bedbound for long periods of time in the future, you need to know you’ll be taken care of. Without that attention and proper tools, you can start developing bed sores. Yet, if this ever happens to you, you can get compensation and justice by hiring bed sores attorneys to take on your case, but it’s better to never end up in that situation in the first place.

Elder abuse is common, and it’s a serious problem. To help vet facilities, make sure that they have these top accessibility features before you commit:

Mobility Tools

Mobility is a growing problem for the elderly, which is why nursing homes need a variety of solutions to accommodate them. In the best case scenario, all doors will be wide enough for electric wheelchairs, and there will be elevators, ramps, and the like. There should also be automated doors to make it easy for residents to get around without someone at their back.

Attentive Staff

Staff must be well-trained, properly compensated, and attentive. Health checkups should be regular, residents should like their carers, and there needs to be security features in place to minimize, if not outright stop, issues like elder abuse from the get-go.

Adaptable Bathrooms

Bathing independently is huge for a person’s dignity and confidence. That’s why adaptive and accessible bathrooms are so important. From sitting showers to grab bars to even walk-in tubs. Bathrooms need to be fully ready to handle all types of mobility issues so that residents can bathe properly on their own.

Technology Integration

The best care homes are integrating tech and AI to make it easier than ever for residents to get the care they need, both for their physical and mental health. Even the simplest tools, like a voice assistant, can make things easier for the elderly. Not just the elderly but any disabled person, see this article by Leonard Cheshire Charity. They can get regular updates on key events they’re interested in, can make appointments in a snap, and can send in requests. Telehealth, in particular, is going to be huge in the future, so see how the residence is adopting telehealth into their regular routines. Wearable health tools like watches, for example, can track things like heart rate and then notify the resident in question if there’s been an anomaly. This is how all care residences can take better care of their residents without overloading on staff.

Here’s how it’s used at Sandbach leonard Cheshire Home