Home safety of elderly in rental flats

• Main Author: Ang, Pauline Ai Leen
• Other Authors: Lim Yoke Eng, Samuel
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Assistive technology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/41437
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This research aims to highlight the safety issues of the elderly population living in rental flats. The safety issues addressed in this study include electrical, fall, fire, and personal injury relating to common activities of daily living (AnLs) such as cooking and hanging of laundry out of the kitchen window. Previous studies have shown that human factors intervention can reduce and eliminate causes of home injury. The methods used include taking demography of the subjects, assessing home safety using a standardized checklist, conducting field analysis of the subjects' homes by marking the hazard items on a map of the layout of the flat, assessing the perception of safety in the elderly using a questionnaire and taking measurements of the fixtures in the home to find out if they are compatible with the anthropometric dimensions of subjects for ease of use. The results of this study show that the kitchen is the most hazardous place, followed by the bathroom, living room and bedroom.