For some patients, recovering at home is much more beneficial than recovering at a hospital or other healthcare facility. Whether it’s a surgery, injury, or serious illness, being in the comfort of your own home can help speed up recovery and avoid the challenges that come with staying in a healthcare facility for long periods of time.
If you are qualified for professional home health care services, here are some of the best ways on how to make your home more comfortable and conducive to recovery:
1. Clean your home
A clean home is a better environment for healing, especially after a serious illness. It also helps you avoid additional illnesses caused by unclean environments, such as colds, coughs, and allergies, just to name a few.
Of course, cleaning your home yourself is out of the question when you are in recovery. Do what you can, but leave the toughest jobs to your loved ones or a professional cleaning crew. You don’t need to clean the entire house from top to bottom; just clean the rooms and areas that you will be spending most of your time in while recovering.
2. Keep everything within reach
Recovering from an illness or injury likely means that your mobility is also limited. While exercise is an essential part of healing, excessive physical activity can do more harm than good. That said, reduce the need to get up and fetch what you need by keeping the essentials within arm’s reach. This includes medications, hand sanitizer, wound care supplies, water, snacks, and your phone.
However, avoid cluttering your immediate area with these essential items. As much as possible, keep them neat and organized–use a mobile caddy or a tray if you have to, or simply use your bedside table.
3. Buy in bulk
Recovery can take a lot of time, and you may not be able to go out and shop for groceries during that period. To avoid running out of essentials, buy groceries in bulk when you get out of the hospital. Have someone else do this or shop for groceries online. Either way, you should buy enough supplies to last you at least two weeks. Alternatively, you can choose to buy enough supplies to last the entire recovery period.
Aside from food, be sure to buy enough medical supplies, medications, and hygiene items that are essential to your recovery.
4. Clear out the furniture
Furniture can make it harder to go about the house when you are recovering from an injury, especially the injury is in the lower extremities. An excellent way to make walking around easier (and avoid re-injury) is to clear out non-essential furniture from the main recovery area or push them against the wall to keep the center of the room clear. Aside from making movement easier, doing this helps avoid knocking your injured body parts on low furniture or tripping on furniture legs while you have a cast on.
5. Move to the first floor
If you sleep on the second floor, consider moving your bedroom to the first floor temporarily. In doing so, you are closer to the living room, kitchen, bathroom, as well as entrances and exits, making it easier for you to move around or leave the house in case of an emergency. Apart from that, staying on the first floor gets rid of the need to climb the stairs, which is essential if you have an injury on the lower half of your body or are prone to falling.
6. Prepare plenty of entertainment
Being stuck at home recovering can easily get boring, and for many patients, boredom is one of the main challenges of healing from an injury or illness. Since you most likely won’t be able to leave your house much, prepare plenty of entertainment for your recovery period.
Download movies or your favorite TV shows, place some books near your bed, buy some activities that you can do from your bed or chair (crosswords, puzzles, adult coloring books, etc.). Whatever keeps you entertained, have it within easy reach so that you will be able to kill boredom easily.
However, avoid having too much screen time. Yes, you are mostly stuck with nothing much else to do, but watching too much TV or using your phone for hours on end can lead to negative health consequences like eye strain and headaches, which can make recovery more difficult.
Recovering from an injury or serious illness is hardly easy. But by making your home more comfortable, you can make recovery much faster, easier, and definitely much more enjoyable.
