Columbia Aged Care

First aid kits are an essential to any home, office or car, as accidents do happen.

A handy, easy to access kit is a great idea and should be a basic house hold item – especially in homes with children or elderly people. Livestrong.com has provided a list of items needed within a first aid kit.

The basic items for any first aid kit are:

• Bandages and gauze
• Adhesive tape
• A torch
• Aspirin
• Latex gloves
• Scissors
• A thermometer
• Tweezers
• A blanket

However, when it comes to a first aid kit for seniors there are a couple of additional items that may be needed.

Emergency supplies:
Be sure to include some emergency supplies of all your medications. This will involve the need to check on all expiry dates regularly. Pick a date you know you will remember, such as the day day-light savings changes or perhaps your birthday, and review all of the contents.

Medical Facts:
Include a short list of medial facts about yourself. Include information such as:

• Any allergies
• Doctors name and phone number
• Any important facts about illnesses you have that people need to know about in an emergency situation, such as allergies, asthma or heart problems.

Extras:
Consider adding an extra pair of glasses, hearing aids, hearing aid batteries, batteries for a wheelchair, an asthma puffer or even oxygen if your daily routine requires it. Be sure to carefully think about what daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly things you use and include replacements or extras of these things just in case.

Prepaid Mobile:
You may not own or want to own a mobile phone but they can be particularly handy – especially in an emergency situation. Even if you don’t ever plan to use a mobile phone, it’s a great idea to add a mobile phone, with a prepaid sim card in it, to your first aid kit. Be sure you know how to turn it on, use the key pad and that you can see the screen clearly.

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By giving your loved one a mobile, you are giving them a small, portable and light emergency link to you, reducing the stress and worry carers feel when separated. A mobile is something they can carry around with them when they go anywhere, whether it be from room to room or when they go on trips out of town.

However, mobiles have so much functionality it may prove difficult to stop your loved one from feeling intimidated and deflecting the suggestion that they need a mobile phone.

Boomers With Elderly Parents have written some great tips about how to look at, and talk about, using mobile phones without intimidating your loved one.

• Functionality: keep it simple, try to find an end of cycle or starter model that doesn’t have all the technological bells and whistles younger generations love.
• Cost: find a service provider that offers simple plans that can be customised for local use only or have a fixed price per month.
• Ease of use: take the time to teach your loved one how to use the device and limit the amount functions they have to accomplish to stay in contact.
• Speed-dialling: this function is especially useful for when caring for a loved one whose memory is becoming affected.

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