What Does Your Senior Need to Know about Using a Walker?
If your senior is finally ready to start using a walker, she needs to know how to use one properly. Using a walker improperly is dangerous and can leave her more likely to fall than not using an assistive device at all. Here’s what you and your senior need to know about properly using a walker.
Leaning Over and Looking Down Are a Recipe for Trouble
When your elderly family member is learning how to use a mobility tool that’s new to her, she might feel awkward enough that she’s looking down or leaning while she walks. That’s going to be a problem with a walker, though. If she continues to do that, she can lose her balance way too easily. Instead, your senior needs to stand straight, rest her hands on the walker, and look forward rather than down. It’s going to take some practice.
The Walker Needs to Stay on All Fours
If your senior tries tipping the walker in order to try to help it to function better for her, she might be surprised at how that doesn’t work. Walkers are designed to use all four corners to provide the maximum stability to the person using them. Tilting the walker, like she might in order to make getting up easier, can actually throw her off balance. The more she gets used to using the walker with all four feet on the floor, the better.
She Needs to Take Her Time
There’s no rush, especially when your elderly family member is using a walker. As she gains some experience using her walker, she may be able to change direction more quickly or get places a little faster. But at the very beginning of her time with a walker, your senior needs to focus on safety rather than speed.
The Walker Works Best When She Steps into It
Something else your elderly family member needs to get used to is stepping into the walker. It’s tempting to stay behind it, but what that does is to encourage your elderly family member to lean over, making the walker less stable. When she steps into it, the way it’s meant to be used, your elderly family member has the support that she needs right there with her.
When your elderly family member has mobility issues, it might be a good idea for her to have more help around. Elderly care providers have experience helping seniors with mobility support. They can also help her to use her walker more regularly and in the way that it’s supposed to be used.
If you or an aging loved one is considering elderly care in East Brunswick, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Care Street Home Care today. Call (732) 607-8870.
The Care Street mission is straightforward and compelling: to provide a comprehensive range of the highest quality home health services in a professional and efficient manner that will enhance our clients' quality of life and empower families to keep their loved one at home.
Care Street has earned a reputation of excellence among hundreds of families, and is recommended by medical professionals and hospital discharge planners throughout the State.
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