While we all like to think of our houses as a safe haven, a surprising number of accidents happen in the home – with many of them being largely avoidable.
From cuts and sprains to more serious incidents like falls or accidental poisoning, there is a multitude of ways you or your family could injure yourselves in the home.
Prevention is always the best cure
As with most aspects of life, prevention is the best cure when it comes to mitigating the risks of household injury. Taking a look around your home, you’ll likely see many areas that could pose a potential danger.
The severity of injuries varies by incident and could result in anything from innocuous scratches or scrapes treated simply with a plaster up to more complex injuries like spinal damage that will require specialist treatments, such as those provided by bioxcellerator.com.
Below are a few steps you should take that will help minimise the chances of you or your loved ones suffering an injury in the home.
Tape down rugs
Sure, rugs look great but they can often present a risk from tripping or slipping – particularly if you have a rug on a wooden floor. To save potential accidents with rugs, think about securing them to the floor with tape, especially along the edges.
Make sure your home is well-lit
Some of the most common household injuries are falls and trips, often caused by bad lighting. You should ensure your home is well-lit both by natural sunlight and artificial lighting. Stairs present a particular danger, especially for younger children or elderly relatives.
Avoid using stools
It’s often far too tempting to stretch into those hard-to-reach places using a stool instead of getting a more secure step ladder. To reduce the risk of a fall, always make sure you use a ladder or – better yet – organise your most commonly used items or food so they are kept in lower, easier-to-reach places. Note – while keeping items within reach will help, you should also make sure toxic items are stored in a safe place, inaccessible to children.
Secure cables and cords
In modern life we have a huge range of gadgets and devices all requiring power, but you should avoid leaving cables loose or exposed on floors to reduce the risk of trips or falls. Also, using cable ties will help organise cords – plus, it’ll make them look much tidier.
Make your bathroom safer
Slips and falls in the bathroom are unfortunately all too common in all age groups. To avoid the danger of slipping in the bath or shower, make sure you use non-slip mats. Also, use rugs on potentially slippery bathroom floors for when you get out of the bath or shower (again, secured with tape as noted above).
Tidy up and reduce the clutter around your home
Having items lying around your floor only increases the chances of tripping. Make sure you tidy up regularly and reduce the clutter around your home. This is particularly important on stairs where a fall could result in much more serious injury. As an extra precaution, you should also drill into your kids the importance of tidying up after playtime.
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