How can bedrooms be made safer for seniors at night?

My neighbor was describing her mother’s fall at 2 a.m. in her Senior’s bedroom when she was trying to make her way to the bathroom. It was a non event, no drama as she so aptly described, simply got out of bed too quickly in the dark and fell on her floor because the rug in her room does not have a non-slip backing on the bottom. She is in physical therapy for 6 weeks of daily physical therapy and her whole family is having to change their schedules to transport her to and from physical therapy, twice a day. Her whole family is also having to readjust their lives as she returns to her home. I have been paying a lot of attention to this as it occurred in a Senior’s bedroom at 2 a.m. in the dark.

Night falls. The bedroom, so familiar to the old adult in the night, has become an obstacle course the half asleep brain cannot navigate. Night falls. Objects in the room, all so familiar in the day time, have become unknown objects in the dark of night and could cause a fall.

And, we have to begin somewhere. It is great that the simple solutions have already been brought up and can be used to good effect. They will all, in the end, do far more good than one expensive overhaul.

NIGHT TIME – Lighting up

Most changes to make a bedroom safe for older people take five minutes or less to set up and won’t cost a fortune.

Nighttime is the most critical time for falls in a senior’s home. In a dark room, a slip and fall can occur in a split second. Increasing the amount of nighttime lighting can decrease the chances of a senior experiencing a nighttime fall. The lighting does not have to be expensive nightlights. Overhead lighting in a room as well as nightlights throughout the home can help a senior see where they are walking in the middle of the night. It is also important to remember that overhead lights in a room can suddenly snap on when entering the room. This can momentarily blind a senior who has been in a very dark room for hours. This can cause problems for a senior to move around in the dark safely.

Contrary to the belief that a room should be fully lit up, more light of a lower level is needed. The goal is to create a trail of light that will lead the person through the dark. In place of bedside lights, motion-activated nightlights on the wall at floor level are far superior. Under-bed LED lighting also is excellent for illuminating the floor in the short amount of time it takes for a person to rise from the bed.

• Plug-in motion sensor nightlights along the route from bed to bathroom
• A small lamp on the bedside table with simple touch activation (no fumbling for switches in the dark)
• Glow-in-the-dark or illuminated light switches so they’re findable in total darkness
• Under-bed LED strips for floor-level visibility during those first groggy seconds upright

First, you have to get the lighting right in the house. That is the foundation on which the rest of this is based.

Step 4: The floor is where most of the risk actually lives

Loose rugs are a real killer on seniors. While they make a room look complete and are super easy to add to a space – I mean who wants to rip up their carpet and re-floors to put in new – loose rugs are a tremendous risk of falls on seniors. Until there is a rug on the market with non-slip backing and non-slip edges, loose rugs need to be removed from the homes of our senior loved ones.

Clearing a path to the bed and bathroom is also important. We tend to overlook the usual items that are always in the same place, such as charging cables crossing the floor, a small stool next to a dresser, or a pair of slippers left just inside the door. These seemingly insignificant objects can cause tripping in the dark of night when half asleep and not seen because they are so familiar to us.

However, removing floor space clutter such as charging cables, lone socks and clothing, etc. and moving furniture to open up a longer but clear path to the bathroom will be far safer than a short but cluttered path.

Getting in and out of bed safely

The greatest risk of falls from a bed typically occurs when a person stands up from a recumbent position. There is a decrease in blood pressure and dizziness that occurs in the few seconds it takes for a person’s body to readjust to an upright position. This increased risk of falls can be mitigated with the use of bed rails. Today there are a wide variety of bed rails available that are unobtrusive and do not resemble the typical, negative stereotypes of institutional bed rails. Most bed rails are designed to be easily secured to almost any bed frame without modification to the frame. The primary function of a bed rail is to provide a stable anchor for a person to push off of while standing from a recumbent position.

Bed rails for seniors can be set up on your bed to stop you from falling out of bed during the night. There are many designs of bed rails available on the market. They have come a long way since the fixed hospital bed rails that many of us are familiar with. In fact most of the modern bed rails are designed to be unobtrusive when not in use and are very easy to attach to most bed frames.

Another important consideration for bed safety is the height of the bed. If the bed is too low it can be difficult for some seniors to stand up from when sitting on the edge of the bed. This can cause them to lose their balance and fall. A bed that is too high can also cause falls as seniors will have to step down in the dark. In these circumstances it may be necessary to alter the height of the bed or to use a number of bed risers in order to lower the bed. The aim is to ensure that when a senior is sitting on the edge of the bed their feet are flat on the floor and their knees are at right angles. In this position they should be able to safely stand up from the bed without the risk of a fall.

See also: Mini Golden Doodles for Sale: Preparing Your Home for a New Companion

A quick comparison: low-effort vs. higher-effort changes

Change	Effort level	Impact on safety
Remove loose rugs	Low	High
Add motion-sensor nightlights	Low	High
Install a bed rail	Low to medium	High
Adjust bed height	Medium	Medium to high
Reconfigure room layout	Medium to high	Medium

The thing people keep forgetting

One final item to put in your bedroom is a phone or personal alarm. Ideally this would be by your side and charged, so that in the case of a fall you can call for help immediately. Research has shown that the time between a fall and serious injury is just a matter of seconds. Having a phone or personal alarm next to your bed (on a nightstand for example) helps you to safely move around your dark bedroom at night, as you know that help is just a button press away. This can help reduce the amount of hesitation or anxiety you have in the event of a fall, that could otherwise cause you to freeze in place and increase your risk of injury.

(And don’t forget that phone and personal alarms need to be within arm’s length of your bed — i.e. charging on your bedside table, not in the kitchen, not on a dresser across the room).

I get that sometimes you feel that you need to do a total reno to create a safe sleeping environment, but I believe that simple changes made in due course to address particular problems in a particular room that support the sleeping person will be enough.