Just as winter weather can make the ground outside slippery and dangerous, inside of your bathroom the puddles of water that can collect on the floor are dangerous. The bathroom is statistically the most dangerous room in your home. Though it doesn’t have the obvious hazards that the kitchen does like knives and hot surfaces, there are lurking dangers in the bathroom that cause more than 250,000 people per year to visit the emergency room.
In fact, a staggering 81% of those people report that their injury was caused by slipping on a wet surface in the bathroom, and another 12% were due to scalding water temperatures. While these injuries are more devastating to the elderly and young children, all ages will feel the impact and pain of a bathroom injury.
Make sure that you and your family members are safe from bathroom injuries by following these tips for improving safety:
- Make sure to add a slip-resistant mat to the floor of your shower or bathtub. Stepping in and out of these places can be hazardous because you are on one foot and by adding a mat your balance can be stabilized by the textured mat. Even if an accidental spill of shampoo is making the floor of the shower more slippery than usual, a textured mat can help to reduce the chances of a fall that you can’t correct yourself out of.
- There is no negative aspect to installing support bars to your shower wall. This is especially true in your children’s bathroom where you can install the grab bars that suction to the wall. These bars are designed to help those with physical disabilities and will support a significant amount of weight. In your children’s bathroom these are ideal because there is no permanent hole in the wall, and as the child grows the bar will continue to support their weight when they need it.
- A floor rug that slips around the bathroom floor will only add to the danger as it could get tripped over or worse, slip out from under someone as they step onto it. If you choose to add floor rugs as a dry place for people to step with their wet feet, make sure to add slip-resistant material to the back of the rug so that it stays in place when stepped on.
If you have children in your home, consider adding a child lock to the bathroom door so that they cannot be in there without an adult. If you children are older, make sure to keep all medications and cleaning products in the master bathroom in a locked cabinet. Bathroom safety is a serious concern and to avoid injuries to yourself and your family, it is important to take the right precautions.