Bedroom & Study Safety

Fire safety

Every family needs to have an escape plan and more than one way to get out of the house or apartment in case of fire or other emergency. Every person should know how to test the bedroom door for heat before opening it and should know how to leave the bedroom and where to meet other family members.

Every home or apartment needs to have both working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. You should know how to change the batteries in the detectors; be sure to keep extra batteries of this type in your refrigerator; and remember a simple date on which to change them. Many people use the daylight savings date, New Year's Eve, or their birthday. Pick whatever works best for you.

Cords for electrical appliances, telephones, computers, printers, or other uses should all be placed behind the furniture away from the circulation areas and never under rugs that you walk on. Extension cords and outlets can easily be overloaded and potentially cause a fire danger. Have someone check these regularly.

Lighting & Contrast in the Bedroom & Study

Room Lighting

Is it too dim, too bright, or does it cover too small an area? If so, consider changing the bulb wattages (within the recommended limits), repositioning lamps, adding additional lighting, or putting dimmer switches on the lights so you can vary their intensity as required.

To ensure better light in a work area where you may be reading, cooking, or writing bills a "task lamp" is the way to go. It can be either a floor or a table lamp with a flexible arm to allow you to adjust the height and direction of the light, and to focus it directly on your work area. You should know that to halve the distance between a light source and the task [bringing the light closer to you work] will increase the brightness by four times. So you don't necessarily need a stronger bulb, you just need to be able to bring the bulb closer to your work, and a flexible task lamp is ideal for this purpose.

For closets, keep a flashlight near the door to help you see items inside. Commercially available stick-on battery-operated lights are also available although they tend to use up battery power very quickly.

Windows

Consider using adjustable blinds, or lighter translucent curtains. For many people natural sunlight is best. If this is true for you, try rearranging your furniture so that your reading chair and work areas are positioned to take advantage of the natural sunlight. If however, you are a person bothered by glare, being able to close off all or part of the direct sunlight may be important for you. In this case, blinds and curtains may be your best options.

Reducing Glare

Windows, mirrors, and shiny surfaces can produce glare and can cause major problems when you're trying to view either a TV or computer screen. Choose a location where you can control both light-intensity, direction, and glare. Turn the TV or monitor away from windows. Glare shields can also be purchased for computer monitors, but they also reduce visibility, so be cautious.

Outlets

Often wall sockets and light switches are either installed or painted the same color as the wall so, with reduced vision, they can be hard to find. One solution is to install new, contrasting color face plates to either the outlets or the light switches.

Another possibility is to mark the outlets with either raised dots or contrasting dots to help you locate them, and align a plug. While you can easily make your own 'dots' using spots of glue, bits of tape, or whiteout solution, dots such as Hi-Marks, Spot-N-Line Pens, Touch Dots and Maxi Marks are also available commercially from vision rehabilitation catalogs (see Products for Independent Living).

Finally, outlets are often low on the wall and behind furniture. As people age and/or have vision issues, it may become more difficult to bend down and use them. A solution to this is to use a surge protector (like many people use with their computers). Plug the surge protector into the outlet and then place the strip on the back or at the end of a table, thus raising the outlet sockets and making them easy to reach. If necessary, the outlets on the surge protector can also be marked with raised or contrasting dots to identify each plug.

Doorways

As it's sometimes difficult to locate doors in a room because they are often the same color as the walls, you might want to consider painting them a different color. The edges of the doors and door knob could also be painted in a contrasting color to the door itself. Painting the doorway threshold a contrasting color may help you define a possible change in level, and thus avoid unnecessary accidents.