Colorado's Best TV show logo, on which Accessible Systems was featured

Home Safety Tips for Seniors Aging in Place

Armando Carillo Education

Accessible Systems was featured on Colorado’s Best TV show, alongside SeniorCareKelly, to discuss how to make a home safe for today’s seniors. They also discussed the trend that more seniors are choosing to age in place longer, and provided some home safety tips and solutions.

TRANSCRIPT

Colorado’s Best TV Show Host: Joana Canals
SeniorCareKelly Founder: Kelly O’Connor
Accessible Systems Co-Owner: Nathan Colburn

Joana: More than ever before, today’s seniors are looking to stay home safely. Senior Care Kelly herself, Kelly O’Connor, joins us live via zoom to share some tips and resources with us. Hi Kelly, how are you?

Kelly: Hi there! Good to see you.

Joana: Good to see you. Let’s start with the biggest barrier for seniors’ safety at home.

Kelly: The biggest barrier is only 5% of homes are accessible. Only 5% of homes have been designed for easy mobility throughout the home, and so that’s really one of the biggest barriers.

Joana: So what’s the first thing that you recommend clients do to live at home safely.

Kelly: Well the first thing that I recommend they do is to engage someone to do a professional home safety evaluation, and a company that I work with quite often is Accessible Systems. I’m actually here today, and I have Nathan Colburn, he’s inside. He’s one of the owners, to tell us a little bit more about what they do and to show us their [adapted] show home.

Joana: Welcome, Nathan. How are you?

Nathan: Very good, thank you both. Welcome to our show home.

Joana: Yes, tell us about your adapted show home. That sounds really interesting.

Nathan: Well we were called into so many homes over the last 20 years to recommend safety and accessibility needs. We decided to create a home environment here, in a private setting so that you can see and try everything that you might use in your home to remain in and enjoy life in your home.

Joana: What is the #1 item seniors in Colorado need in order for their home to be safe?

Nathan: You know, almost all of us have stairs either to get into the house or to go up and down between levels… second floor, basement… so a stair lift is typically the #1 solution that helps us remain in the home as we start to have difficulty climbing and getting down the steps.

Joana: I’m curious Nathan, wouldn’t stair lifts take up a lot of space or damage the home in some way?

Nathan: That’s the biggest rumor that actually is false because these stair lifts will fit within 6 – 7 inches of the stairs, on the edge of the stairs, and they just attach to the steps themselves they don’t touch the wall. They can be rented or removed and very easily go in and out of the home, so that it doesn’t cause any damage or take up very much space at all.

Joana: That’s awesome, so do you have anything you want to tell us or show us about that stair lift and how it works?

Nathan: You know, the important thing is there are straight and curved stair lifts so no matter what stair case you have, if you have a straight or a curved stair lift, the lift will go around the corners or go straight up and down your stair case, again inside or outside they work. The other part is, they do run on batteries, so even if the power goes out, the lift will continue to work. Very safe.

Joana: That’s pretty amazing what you’ve done there. What a great company. Thanks for joining us today, Nathan.

Nathan: Thank you.

Joana: Kelly, I see why you’ve partnered with such a great company. They do such great work for seniors.

Kelly: They do, and they’re wonderful people. I encourage anyone that wants to come and visit the show home to come out. It really is a beautiful way to sort of touch and feel all of the items that you might want to have in your home to make it safer.

Joana: Yeah and in these times, wouldn’t you say that more seniors are looking to stay at home?

Kelly: They are. It really is, it’s more people are trying to stay at home safely, and then when it’s not safe to stay at home they are moving to senior living. I always want people to stay at home safely as long as possible, as long as it makes sense for the family, and making sure that the home itself is safe is really important.

Joana: Yeah, you do great work. Thank you so much for joining us today with all of these options and Accessible Systems has a great offer for Colorado’s Best viewers. Get $100 off a stair lift. All you have to do is mention that you saw them on Colorado’s Best, so call them right now at 303-693-7787 or find them online at accessiblemed.com. If you have a question for SeniorCareKelly, find her online at [email protected] or you can call her at 720-502-0020.