Decluttering Your Client’s Home for Safety and Accessibility

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The AARP’s ten-year study indicates that over 77% of individuals aged 50 and above prefer to continue living in their homes as they age.

While this choice can simplify life for seniors, it introduces new challenges for the younger generation. One of the main challenges is managing the accumulation of belongings. On average, Americans possess around 300,000 items in their homes, and one in ten Americans rent external storage space for their excess belongings.

Over the years, seniors accumulate many items that they might no longer use daily. These extra belongings can clutter the home, making it difficult for seniors to move around safely and potentially complicating any plans to downsize to a smaller living space.

This situation highlights the importance of effective decluttering. And your caregivers must know how to declutter your client’s home. To help you with this, today we are sharing practical tips to enhance elderly care at home.

Benefits of Decluttering

When discussing decluttering with your client, emphasize these benefits:

• More Time: Starting early gives you ample time to go from room to room, making the process less overwhelming and stressful. By applying insights from caregiver training, caregivers can help initiate the decluttering process in a way that promotes patience and efficiency, ensuring the task is manageable for everyone involved.
• Clarity on Essentials: Decluttering helps you identify what you truly need. Take a few days to note which items you use most often; these are the ones to keep. Over time, donate or give away items that are no longer necessary to those who will appreciate them.
• Thoughtful Decisions: Starting the process early gives you more time to consider the best course of action for family heirlooms and other valuable items, ensuring they are passed on to the right people. Caregiver training programs provide strategies for assisting clients in making these thoughtful decisions, with a focus on honoring the sentimental value of treasured possessions.
• Lifestyle Opportunities: Decluttering frees up your time, allowing you to enjoy each day more and explore retirement options and the lifestyle you desire.

Categorize Before Decluttering

People accumulate belongings and find it difficult to part with them for various reasons. They might believe they will use the items in the future, fear needing them at a crucial moment, or hold onto collections that evoke memories of happier times. Regardless, assisting aging parents with decluttering is a significant task. To get started, consider the following approach:

• Start Small: Even better, confine yourself to a small area of cleaning, for example, a drawer, a table top or a counter.
• Prepare Supplies: Make sure you have trash bags, moving boxes along with masking tape or label.
• Select a Category: Cover one type at a time, for instance books, or magazines, clothing, or kitchenware.
• Set Time Limits: This is why it is best to work in small shifts which make good sense to avoid being overburdened by the work.
• Enlist Help: Self-support involve family or friends to support in development of the program.
• Plan for Unwanted Items: Determine what should be done with unwanted items—give it out to charity, discard them or sell them in a garage sale.
• One In, One Out Rule: When introducing an object into the home environment, get rid of an object of an equivalent value.
• Clean and Declutter First, Then Organize: Clean and organize before arranging and would prefer if the things around us are simpler.
• Seek Professional Help: If necessary, it is recommended to address professional organizers or if it has a psychological nature, with the help of psychological centers such as the American Psychiatric Association or the International OCD Foundation.

Top Tips for Decluttering Your client’s Home

It’s All About Perspective

It is thoroughly difficult to evacuate items that have been incorporated into the day-to-day existence. This is helpful when a parent’s possession become cumbersome and one needs to assist the aging parents to sort them. Begin by dividing items into two categories: core and frills. There is a difference between core and frills which divides this service into necessities and/or desirable elements. Subtract everything that is necessary in the facility, whether it is structural, essential for ability or mandatory for daily functioning, to establish the square footage that can be dedicated to the would-be-fancy. If an item does not fit let them change their perception from ‘I should not let go of this’ to ‘I should be happy that someone else can use this.’

Adopt the Three-Step Declutter Plan

There is a compelling reason that it is difficult for an older individuals who has spent a lifetime amassing these items and receiving constant piles of bills, junk mail and magazines not to become physically, mentally or emotionally overwhelmed.

A practical approach is a three-step declutter plan:

• Recycling tins,
• They should be made to segregate the items they want to keep,
• Items for donating and items for disposal.

Sometimes seniors need a little help from their clients to manage the clutter, and online training for caregivers can provide the necessary skills to offer this support effectively. Caregiver training programs also cover how care professionals can assist with daily activities and household tasks, ensuring that seniors can maintain a comfortable and clutter-free living environment.

There is No “Right” Way to Approach the Task

Different families and living situations require different decluttering approaches. For sentimental keepsakes like clothes, dinnerware, or plants, consider taking pictures before donating them to people or places you know. For bulky practical items like furniture, tools, and electronics, consider raffling them off or discarding items not used in two years.

Be Sure to Document Belongings

Take photos and videos of the family home “as-is” and document the stories behind items for future reference and generations. While people often have photos of events in their homes, they rarely document the “stuff” and the stories behind it. Create a scrapbook or photobook of treasured possessions, including stories about them. For videos, have clients narrate stories, with other family members joining in. Once everything is documented, it becomes easier to sell, give away, or dispose of items because the memories are preserved.

Respect Your Client’s Belongings

When helping an aging parent downsize, it’s crucial to be respectful of their possessions. Avoid dismissive comments like “Just get rid of this stuff” or “This is all junk.” These items represent a lifetime of memories. Focus on one room at a time and approach the task with gentleness, patience, and respect. Resources like caregiver training programs provide valuable insights on how to handle downsizing with sensitivity and respect.

Decluttering as a Stress Reliever

Studies show that clutter can cause anxiety, depression, and stress. Cleaning and decluttering can help alleviate these feelings. Additionally, donating unwanted items to charitable organizations can provide tax benefits. You can also creatively donate or sell vintage items, such as to schools for theater productions. Keep what’s important and avoid suggesting throwing out priceless mementos, as people often realize they don’t miss items after a cleanout.

Keep the Best, and Let Go of the Rest

Reassure your clients that the goal is not to get rid of their favorite items but to keep the best and let go of the rest. Remind them that donating excess items can free up space in their home and benefit others in the community. Holding onto items that are no longer needed or loved can weigh them down while releasing these items can create a lighter, more relaxed living space.

Approach with Empathy

Approach the project with empathy, understanding that losses accumulate with age. Highlighting the joy these items will bring to new owners can ease the pain of parting with possessions. Emphasize how the objects that brought joy will continue to do so for others.

Decluttering for Safety and Well-Being

Decluttering creates a safer and more comfortable home for seniors by reducing fall risks and promoting mental well-being. A tidy space fosters a sense of control, eases daily routines, and enhances emotional health.

Clear the Clutter, Clear Your Mind

A messy environment increases the risk of falls among elderly individuals. According to CDC data, one in three seniors falls at home. To reduce this risk, take steps to eliminate clutter:

• Remove obstacles such as scatter rugs, extension cords, and piles of items that hinder movement.
• Encourage letting go of unnecessary belongings by saying, “Let’s bless someone else with this.”
• Apply the two-year rule: If an item hasn’t been used in the past two years, it may be best to sell or discard it.
• For seniors who grew up during the Great Depression and struggle to part with possessions, explain that donating items helps those in need rather than sending them to a landfill.

Caregivers can learn additional strategies for maintaining a clutter-free and safe environment through online training.

Reduce Anxiety and Depression by Cleaning

Have you ever entered a room that was extremely messy and gotten this feeling of stress? The clutter can serve as a reminder of all that is left unfinished and needs to be done. This feeling will lead to high anxiety and might even contribute to depression. Conversely, a clean and organized environment promotes a sense of control and serenity. It simplifies the seniors’ daily lives and makes their daily routines even easier to deal with, with an easy view of things so they can look for them safely in the rooms. Organizing an environment improves mood and mental acuity; decluttering is essential for emotional healing.

Creative Solutions to Donate or Sell Items

The hardest part of decluttering is letting go of belongings to which one has a deep emotional connection. However, one way to make this process easier is to focus on how others can benefit from your items.

• You may start by donating used items to local charities, shelters, or community organizations.
• Another alternative can be selling items through websites like Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
• In doing so, you declutter and might make some additional money.
• Even better, consider giving items to family members or friends who might treasure them. That gives the meaning of life to your possessions while allowing you to share memories with others.

Keep Only What Serves a Purpose and Toss the Rest

When decluttering, it’s also important to remember not everything must go. Be sure to center on things that are of utmost importance to you. For an example of helping oneself determine this, one strategy would be the “Three Ask Question Method”; these are simply the questions-

• “Do I use this frequently?
• Do I love this piece?
• Does this make me glad I own this thing?”

Any negative to three makes it possible to say it’s probably time for something to move out. Such a strategy sets you focusing only on the essentials, and those items will quickly let them out. By prioritizing meaningful items, you can create a home filled with memories and essentials, making your environment more personal and comforting.

Making Home Navigation Easier

A cluttered home is stressful and hazardous, especially for seniors. Decluttering is crucial in making your living space more manageable and safer.

Removing Safety Hazards to Prevent Falls

Falling is the most common cause of injury for older adults and often happens at home. Loose rugs, scattered shoes, and piles of newspapers can become tripping hazards. Clearing out these obstacles makes the environment safer.

• Consider moving furniture around to create clear pathways and ensure that frequently used items are easily accessible.
• In addition, make sure that the lighting is bright enough to illuminate every area of the home.

Well-lit areas make it easy to see what could be dangerous and add warmth and invitation to a location.

Application of the Two-Year Rule for Unused Items

The two-year rule is one efficient way to decide what to keep. If you haven’t used an item in the past two years, chances are you won’t use it in the future. This rule helps to cut down on unnecessary clutter without overthinking each item.

• Exceptions can be made for sentimental items, but for most belongings, if it’s just gathering dust, it’s time to let it go.

This exercise makes one handle possessions with more excellent care and can contribute to opening up a home and its spaces.

Supporting Seniors in Overcoming Emotional Attachment to Objects

Many older adults find decluttering very emotional. They may attach emotional value to objects, for example, due to memories they hold or people who have brought them close. Therefore, this process should be handled with care.

• Sometimes, the weight of letting go is alleviated by discussing why it matters to you.
• When an object has to be released, and the burden feels too hard to bear, a photograph might help to memorialize the time and preserve the memory without requiring storage space.

This often seems to close the gap between a sense of being attached and needing to let something go.

Managing Decluttering Sessions

The problem with decluttering the entire house in a day is burnout. It should be broken down into smaller sessions to manage the process more effectively.

• You can declutter just one room or even one drawer or shelf, and you should set aside 15-30 minutes daily.
• That way, you would not feel like burning out on such a significant process.

Remember that every little thing counts; when you celebrate your small victories, you’ll want to keep going.

Sorting Items into Keep, Donate, Recycle, or Undecided

Creating a simple sorting system can make the decision-making process much more manageable.

• Set up four categories: Keep, Donate, Recycle, and Undecided.
• As you go through your items, assign each one to a category.

This method keeps you organized and prevents items from being shuffled around. After a few days, revisit the “Undecided” pile. With time, you will often see whether items belong in your space more clearly.

Making Gradual Progress for Long-Term Success

At some point, the key to decluttering is consistency. It’s not about achieving perfection simultaneously but setting up a comfortable and functional space over time.

• Smaller, regular changes make it easier to maintain an uncluttered environment without feeling overwhelmed.
• Moreover, this gradual approach will also help you develop habits that promote further organization and reduce your chances of clutter building up again.

The final essence of decluttering is having a light, safe, and welcoming space. With patience and a thoughtful approach, you can transform your home from clutter to a peaceful haven, making daily life much easier and more enjoyable.

Wrapping Up

By setting aside regular time, categorizing belongings, and making respectful decisions, you can help your clients create a safer and more comfortable living environment. Remember to approach the process with empathy and patience, recognizing the sentimental value of their possessions. Seeing gradual progress can provide motivation to continue.

To ensure the best support for your clients, ensure caregivers are equipped with the necessary skills. Professional caregiver training through platforms like Learn2Care can enhance their ability to assist effectively, making the decluttering process smoother and more efficient for everyone involved.