Home Safety and Alzheimer’s

Caring for a person with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a challenge that calls upon the patience, creativity, knowledge and skills of the caregiver.

We hope that this resource will help you cope with some of these challenges and help you develop creative solutions to increase the security and freedom of the person with AD in your home.

This material is for those who provide care for people with AD or related disorders.  Our goal is to improve home safety by identifying potential problems in the home and offering possible solutions to help prevent accidents.  We offer checklists to help you make each room in your home a safer environment.  Next, we hope to increase awareness of the ways specific impairments associated with the disease can create particular safety hazards in the home.

Specific home safety tips are listed to help you cope with some of the more hazardous behaviors that may occur as the disease advances. We also include tips for managing driving and planning for natural disaster safety.

Click on the links below to see each topic:

  1. What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
  2. What are the Symptoms of AD?
  3. General Safety Concerns
  4. Is it Safe to Leave the Person with AD Alone?
  5. Home Safety Overview
  6. Alzheimer’s Home Safety – Inside the House
  7. Alzheimer’s Home Safety – Outside the House
  8. Alzheimer’s Home Safety Room-by-Room
  9. Alzheimer’s Home Safety – Wandering
  10. Alzheimer’s Home Safety – Rummaging/Hiding Things
  11. Hallucinations, Illusions, Delusions 
  12. Alzheimer’s Home Safety – Impaired Senses
  13. Unsafe Driving
  14. Alzheimer’s Home Safety during Natural Disasters
  15. Who Would Take Care of Your Loved One with AD if Something Happened to You?
  16. Caring for the Caregiver
  17. Additional Alzheimer’s Resources

Acorn wishes to acknowledge the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center that were the sources for this valuable content.