Most people expect their lives to slow down when they reach a certain age. They expect to develop health conditions or lose their sight or be unable to continue doing the things that they love.
While you may wish to relax a little more in your senior years, this isn’t mandatory. If you’re physically able to, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t carry on with your favorite hobbies and passions.
Whether you’re entering your sixties, seventies, eighties, or beyond, there are lots of things that you can do to make your life easier. Even if you’re physically and mentally healthy, you can make the most of the different technologies and aids that are now available for seniors.
Below, we’ve listed some of the great ways that you can make your daily living simple and easy.
1-Manage Your Health Conditions
For those of you who suffer from chronic health conditions, it’s important that you manage them effectively. Otherwise, your condition might worsen and make things harder than they need to be.
There are lots of mobility aids and medical devices that can simplify your daily routine while keeping your symptoms at bay. Speak with your doctor or physical therapist to see what devices are available for you.
For example, those of you with chronic lung diseases might benefit from using an oxygen concentrator portable device. It will provide you with extra oxygen to manage your condition and stay physically active.
If you have diabetes, monitoring your blood glucose and making positive lifestyle changes will keep your condition under control. If your blood pressure is chronically high, you’ll need to take regular antihypertensive medications to lower it to a healthy range.
There are endless examples of how you can manage chronic health conditions. If you’re unsure how to effectively manage your conditions, consult a healthcare professional for expert advice.
2-Use a Pill Box
It’s easy to forget to take your medications, especially when you need to take several every day. Pill boxes are the perfect solution to your forgetfulness!
You can keep your daily pills in the seven compartments, each of which is labeled with a day of the week. At the end of each day, you can check the corresponding component in your pill box to see if you have remembered to take every medication.
Pill boxes can be particularly helpful if you need to take your tablets at different times of the day as you can very easily forget to take them later in the day when you’re busy. You can also use your phone to set reminders that alert you when it’s time to take your medications.
3-Modify Your Home
There are lots of great modifications that you can make in your house to simplify your life. Retirement homes are a great option for many seniors. However, if you want to live independently in the comfort of your own home, you can do so by making positive changes to your environment, even if you have limited mobility and are dealing with a number of health conditions.
Here are some home modifications that you should consider to make your life easier as a senior:
- Widened doorways
- Handrails
- Motorized stair lift
- Reduced furniture
- Indoor and outdoor ramps
If you use a large walking frame or a wheelchair, you may already have some of these modifications in place. However, they will be beneficial for any senior, regardless of physical disabilities or mobility issues.
4-Use Tape to Tie Down Cables and Wires
Loose cables and over turned rugs can increase your risk of trips and falls at home. As an older adult, your stability and balance might already be compromised so minimizing fall risks is crucial.
Use strong tape to tie down loose cables and wires, and to cover the ends of your rugs. This will prevent you from tripping up and sustaining a nasty injury. You can get tape from most hardware stores for an affordable price.
5-Arrange a Meal Delivery Service
If you struggle to cook healthy meals for yourself, whether that’s because you are unsteady on your feet, have poor vision, or don’t enjoy cooking, using a meal delivery service could be helpful.
Most meal delivery services offer multiple dishes so you can choose your favorites. They usually offer the option for one, two, or three full meals a day so that you don’t need to cook from scratch yourself.