It is ten past three in the morning and you are awake, and you need the bathroom.
You know this room. You have slept in it for years. So you swing your legs over the side, stand up, and start walking before your eyes have opened all the way, because turning on the light means being awake for another hour and you cannot afford that tonight.
Twenty seconds. Bed to door. In the dark, half asleep, moving fast.
That walk is the most dangerous thing you will do all day.
The room that never gets safety-proofed
Think about where the safety work goes.
Grab bars go in the bathroom. Rails go on the stairs. The kitchen gets the reachers and the lighter pans and the mat that doesn’t slide. All sensible. All the rooms where you are awake, upright, and paying attention.
The bedroom gets nothing, because the bedroom is where you are safe. It’s where you rest. Nothing happens in there.
Except that more than one in four people aged 65 or older fall each year, according to the National Institute on Aging. And a…