Elderly Challenge- Observation 2

For this week, I went to my paternal grandmother house as she lived near me. She lives with my two aunts in a condominium with my aunt's two children. She is 77 years old and is still strong. What i observed the house concepts is that they are still using the old methods of hanging out clothes which is doing the hanging of clothes manually. During the day, my aunts and thier husbands is working. Even though they hire a maid, the maid only take care of the children. My grandmother is the one who cooks, hang out the clothes and basically the main house chores.

Like many other elderly, she had difficulties hanging out the clothes to dry. She prefers letting the clothe dry out in the sun rather than in the house. She cannot stretch her hands as her hand is quite weak and i can see her groan as the clothes hanging on  the bamboo pole is quite heavy. Furthermore, they stay at a high level so if the bamboo pole dropped, the impact will be greater. I suggest that they have an automated hanging bamboo pole installed in every apartment. Even though some of the condominium and flats already installed, only the minority. The condominium should be elderly-friendly.

The second challenges i observed is that the corridors is very narrow. The corridors are occupied with neighbour's stuffs which is bulky. It can lead to fire if the stuff are flammable. Those elderly with walking stick, wheelchair and aid will not be able to pass through as it is very narrow.

The third challenges i observed is that the floor outside the house is made of marble which is quite slippery. The cleaners mopped the floors twice a month and at that time, the cleaners are cleaning the floor. The cleaner are very irresponsible, she put the sign at only one part but the other part she did not put. The floor is slippery and the elderly may not be able to see the sign at the other part and may unknowingly fall. It will have a quite  a big impact on the elderly as their bones is fragile.They should at least put more signs telling that the floor are wet and slippery so elderly can take more precautions.

These is my observation for week 2. For week 3, i plan to observe the market and around it.