Cleaning the gutters, carrying a laundry basket downstairs, or scrubbing the bathtub probably doesn’t feel dangerous enough to warrant a second thought. Yet ordinary household chores can combine ladders, slippery floors, awkward lifting, poor lighting, and overreaching in ways that become more consequential as balance, vision, strength, or medication use changes with age. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than one in four adults 65 and older falls each year, with about 4.5 million emergency department visits resulting from older-adult falls annually. These seven everyday chores can become more dangerous as we get older. Acknowledging them can help you stay safe and save you from landing in the emergency room with an expensive bill.
