Falls Prevention: 5 Things Every Family Should Check at Home

Most falls in older adults happen at home, doing ordinary things: getting up at night, stepping out of the shower, carrying washing. The encouraging flip side is that a ten-minute walk around the house can find most of the hazards, and fixing them costs surprisingly little.

Here are the five checks we do, as home-visit physios, in every new client’s house. Do them next time you visit your parents.

1. The floor: mats, cords and clutter

Loose rugs and mats are the classic culprit, especially small ones on hard floors and anything with a curling edge. Walk each room asking one question: could a foot catch on this?

• Remove loose mats entirely, or fix them with non-slip backing
• Route power cords and phone chargers away from walkways
• Clear the “floor storage” that accumulates along hallways

The hardest part is usually persuading a parent to part with a beloved rug. Frame it as a trial: roll it up for a month and see if anyone misses it.

2. Lighting, especially the night-time path

Ask one specific question: “Show me exactly how you get to the toilet at 2am.” Then walk that route with the lights off. Night-time toilet trips are one of the most common fall scenarios we hear about.

• Plug-in sensor night lights along the bedroom-to-bathroom route cost a few dollars each
• A lamp or light switch should be reachable from the bed, not across the room
• Check outdoor lighting at the front and back doors too

3. The bathroom

Wet, hard and full of things people grab that aren’t designed to be grabbed. Towel rails pull out of walls; grab rails don’t.

• A grab rail at the shower entry and beside the toilet is the single best-value safety upgrade in the house
• Non-slip mat (rubber-backed) inside and outside the shower
• If getting off the toilet is a struggle, a raised seat or over-toilet frame helps. Struggling to stand is also a strength problem a physio can actually fix

4. Steps, stairs and the front entrance

• Every set of steps needs a solid rail, including the single step at the front door
• Mark step edges with contrasting tape if they’re hard to see
• Watch out for the “garden step”: uneven pavers and hoses across paths cause more falls than staircases do

5. The person, not just the house

Here’s the thing we most want families to know: the biggest falls risk factor isn’t in the house. It’s strength and balance. If your parent grips furniture as they move, takes two goes to get out of a chair, or has stopped activities because they’re “being careful”, the house checklist alone won’t be enough.

The evidence is genuinely good news. Structured balance and strength training reduces falls by roughly a quarter, which is a bigger effect than most medications for most conditions. It works at 70, at 80 and at 90.

Also worth booking: a medication review with their GP (some combinations increase falls risk) and an eye test. Both are quiet contributors.

If there’s already been a fall

Act now rather than after the next one. One fall roughly doubles the odds of another within a year. A falls and balance assessment measures actual risk with validated tests and turns it into a program. Because we visit homes across the Gold Coast, we check the house and the person in the same visit.

Worried about a parent but not sure where to start? Call or message us. We’re happy to talk it through with families before anyone commits to anything.