The kitchen is an essential part of the house. Besides being a place to make food, it’s often a source of comfort and warm memories. As we age, however, the kitchen can house safety risks. It’s important to modify it to accommodate the needs of older adults, so they can continue to make good food and good memories!
Potential Modifications
There are many ways to modify a kitchen to fit an older person’s needs! Make sure to keep their individual preferences in mind as you make modifications, and consult them throughout the planning process.
- Add Lighting: Visual impairments are some of the most common conditions that affect older adults. Since there are so many small objects and fall risks in kitchens, making sure that a kitchen is well-lit can make the room much safer for older adults with limited sight. Additionally, changing the color of light switches or common kitchen items to contrast with their surroundings can also help make the room easier to navigate.
- Remove sharp corners: The counters and cramped spaces present in a kitchen create significant risks for injuries caused by bumping into corners. Rounding these edges will significantly reduce the risk of cuts or bruises. Changing sharp corners to round edges can be done easily, either by requesting rounded corners while installing furniture or by covering existing sharp corners with corner guards. Furniture corner guards are easy to install, readily available online, and an affordable solution to this problem!
- Optimize Storage: Reaching up or bending over to rummage through drawers can be physically difficult and strain back muscles. Luckily, there are fairly simple ways to improve the storage situation in a kitchen without changing the entire layout. One way is to simply organize the kitchen so that commonly used items are readily available. Another option is to put items in hard-to-reach places, like corner cabinets, on Lazy Susans to reduce the need for poking around inside the cabinet. Alternatively, the entire kitchen can be upgraded to make items more accessible. For example, adding pull-out drawers into the pantry can make it easier for an older adult with limited mobility to grab their favorite snack. Or, changing corner drawers and cabinets to have folding doors can make them more accessible as well.
- Modify Appliances: One common concern is that older adults have to reach up in order to put things in and take things out of the microwave. Lifting heavy dishes can cause physical strain, which makes microwave modifications necessary. The easiest fix is to move the microwave so that it’s on the counter or slightly below since this will reduce the amount of effort needed to use it. Another appliance that may need changes is the sink. Installing a sink with a shallower basin will make it easier to wash dishes since older adults will not have to strain their backs to bend over to wash their dishes.
Many kitchen modifications can be done affordably with some creativity! For example, simply adding organizational systems or reorganizing items and appliances can make a kitchen much easier for an older adult to use. Finding ways to make the space easier to navigate will help older adults enjoy the comfort of aging at home for many years to come!
