By Mark Caffiers, Head of Inspections
According to the AARP, 90% of adults 65+ want to stay in their current homes as they age. Who wouldn’t want to live at home? The bigger question is, are our loved ones safe to remain at home?
Every 20 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. And significant injuries are much more common than that according to the CDC. In 2014, out of pocket expenses related to falls for Georgia families were $150 million. So how do we know if our elderly loved ones are safe at home?
The Home Safe Home Assessment brings together a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) home inspector and a Doctor of Physical Therapy to assess the safety of the physical home and the mobility of the resident within their home.
This will provide our clients with an exceptional overview of the current safety and ability for their loved ones to age in place. We will also make recommendations based on our findings for areas that need to be addressed to improve mobility, security and functional use within the home.
This assessment can help identify if or when the time has come to look into a different and safer living arrangement. Having this conversation is often difficult with our loved ones. But with the Home Safe Home Assessment, you have documentation of the current recommendations.
Our mission and vision is to provide current assessments of client’s mobility and home safety to determine steps necessary to improve quality of life and increase safety making staying at home a reality. We put the wellbeing and dignity of aging and disabled persons at the forefront to give you peace of mind by providing professional objective assessments to be able to have conversations and make informed decisions.
Step 1 :Home assessment ~ A certified home inspector will assess the home’s condition for safety. They will make recommendations that include the best safety practices of the NAHB , CAPS and InterNACHI. You will receive a detailed report of the home’s condition and recommendations for upgrades. The report produced by the home inspector will be utilized by the Doctor of Physical Therapy when the mobility assessment is conducted.
Step 2 : Mobility within the home ~The mobility assessment involves a series of standardized tests which are used to compare your loved ones mobility to age matched peers. This is useful to identify how well they are doing with their mobility overall. Balance, strength and speed are assessed in a safe and standardized manner.
The qualitative aspect of mobility is observed with a short series of daily activities performed by the client and observed by the therapist. This demonstrates how well the client is able to navigate their own home and can show safety hazards or future barriers to aging in place.
Step 3: Action Items ~The written report will detail immediate , short term and long term recommendations of specific items from the master list produced by the home inspectors report to safely age in place.
DS Murphy and Keep Mom Safe At Home recommend consulting with your doctor and homecare provider to further outline design considerations for homeowners whose mobility or physical condition requires changes to “age in place” in their residence. It is also important to assess long term maintenance and plan a budget for home improvement over time. This will prevent the need for extensive repair/remodeling at the time of a health crisis.
DS Murphy and InterNACHI advocate healthy living, as it plays a vital role in your ability to age in place. Most seniors leave their homes due to functional and mobility limitations that result from medical crises, and an inability to pay for support to stay with them in their home. Effectively managing health risks and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can help you stay strong, age well, and live long at your own home.
” Home Safe Home” assessments start at $699 for homes up to 2000 sq ft
Contact us at info@dsmurphyinspections.com (678) 573 6005
Response
Wanted to leave a comment on the Big Push story. The highest Fed rate hike probability is for a total of 50 more basis points or .5% before they stop raising completely. The Fed is saying they will not drop rates in 2023 is most likely lip service because the Fed is data driven and have stated multiple times that even they don’t know what they are going to do at their next meeting because it depends on upcoming new jobs numbers, unemployment figures, and CPI (Consumer Price Index) and PPI (Producer Price Index) as well as other backwards looking data. If the Fed announced that they were dropping interest rates this year, the stock market would rally, more money would be made, spending could increase and inflation would rise. Raising the rates is the best tool the Fed has for crushing inflation so the Fed will say they will NOT cut rates in 2023 to help them get the inflation numbers down. Most likely the Fed has raised rates a bit too much and we will see deflation and they will have to make a rate reduction maybe somewhere in the third quarter, or fourth quarter. When we get our first rate reduction (most likely in the second half of 2023) we will see the stock market rise and home sales will become a little more attractive. Didn’t mean to go on so long but wanted to explain where I was coming from when I say “There is no way the Fed knows they are not lowering rates in 2023!” It’s all data driven and depends on the state of our economy. Thank you for your time and have an awesome 2023!