6 Best Senior Winter Tips to Prepare for the Coming Season

Helping your senior loved one prepare for the change in seasons is important because they could not easily do any of these preparative measures by themselves. You should also check out in advance if the senior has outdated equipment or busted gears that could later put the senior’s health at serious risk. While it's still autumn right now, heeding these 6 tips to help your senior loved one prepare for the change in season could save you and your aging parent a lot of trouble and spare you from unnecessary risk.

Get Ready for Winter!

1. Make sure that the house has proper heating: Temperatures can go from chilly to biting cold as seasons change from summer to autumn to winter. This is a critical time for seniors, whose weakened physical constitutions make them vulnerable to certain medical events. The house gets too cold, and they might suffer a heart attack or a stroke. It is therefore highly important to check the house’s heating sources for any possibility of failure. Check the fireplace, the heater and even space heaters. If you can afford it, you should upgrade old space heater models to the latest ones, which are safer to use and less prone to causing fires. Chimneys should be cleaned and checked for any blockage or buildup of soot and dirt. The heater’s filter should also be replaced. If you’re one of those who subscribe to a gas-based heating system, call the gas company and request for an inspection.

2. Install carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide detectors and alarms: During winter, residents are usually forced to stay indoors for days. This creates a situation where they rely solely on the house’s heating system. If you’re living in a new house or a house whose venting system has not been properly inspected, this could pose a danger of gas poisoning. Carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide are silent killers, and such gases have in fact poisoned and killed people, even entire families, and such tragic loss of life could have been prevented by the installation of a very simple and inexpensive detector and alarm.

3. Stock up on supplies: Back in those days before widespread and inexpensive refrigeration, families would spend the previous three seasons preparing for the winter by drying, smoking or canning all their food. These days, you don’t have to do any of that. All you need to do is hit the supermarket and stock up on food and other supplies, such as emergency medicine, painkillers, extra lights or bulbs, batteries.

4. Make advance planning for snow and ice removal: You can’t expect your elder to go out there and shovel snow, can you? Ice and snow present a lot of serious hazards to the average senior—ice is slippery, for example, and poses a serious risk for accidental fall. In fact, many elderly people figure in various outdoor accidents involving ice and snow each year. Hire a professional who can provide snow removal service, or at least, try to go out of your way to do this for your senior loved one.

5: Have someone to regularly visit your senior loved one: Despite all careful precautions, sometimes you can’t really be sure. Try to visit your senior loved one regularly, checking their medicine intake, the house’s temperature and heating, and food supply. If you can’t do it yourself, find someone who can do it for you, preferably a professional care-giver. Such care providers are often hired out from their agencies, at very flexible schedules.

6. And most importantly, ensure the senior’s safety: The change in seasons—from summer to autumn to winter—can be highly stressful events for those with certain medical conditions and weakened physical constitutions, such as the elderly. Winter, in particular, presents a significant risk to seniors due to the extreme weather conditions that could last for several weeks. For this reason alone, you might consider getting your senior loved one a medical alert system, a device that is worn as a bracelet or necklace pendant. The wearer needs only to press the device to get instant communication with a monitoring and response team in the event of an emergency. Such a personal alert system is inexpensive to use, anyway, with several highly reputable providers competing to serve you.