Moving is difficult for everyone. But there are some additional challenges to face for the elderly. If you’re helping an elderly family member or friend move, you need to be conscientious about the risks involved. Here, we review some of the particular challenges that come with moving with seniors and provide some strategies to help.
The Challenges of Moving for Seniors
For seniors, the challenges of moving are two-fold. Physically, they may have great difficulty trying to move their items. They may also need special accommodations to be moved with them, such as rails or ramps that need to be installed.
Emotionally, moving is taxing on everyone. If you’re moving elderly parents to assisted living, they will need to deal with a transition between stages of life. Some elderly individuals feel as though they are losing their independence, when they’re really moving to a location that can foster it.
Both the physical challenges and emotional challenges will need to be dealt with for a smooth and easy transition.
Moving Tips for Seniors
When moving a senior family member, follow these tips:
- Double-check the space. If you’re down-sizing, you need to make sure that everything can be moved over. If not everything can be moved over, long-term storage may be in order.
- Remove as many items as possible. General decluttering, such as throwing away items and giving items away, is best done before the move; there’s no use in moving items that the senior isn’t going to use.
- Keep some sentimental items. As mentioned, moving can be difficult both physically and emotionally. Keeping some sentimental items can help ease the transition.
- Hire professionals for heavy and bulky items. Hiring professionals reduces the chances that someone could get injured during the move, and it makes the move faster and easier.
- Make sure necessary items are packed separately. This includes hygiene items, comfort items, and other items that your elderly family member may need immediately, such as an orthopedic pillow, or medications.
In many ways, seniors move just like everyone else. But patience and care must be used throughout the process.
Checklist for Moving Elderly Parents
Want to keep your move orderly? As with most things, separating the move into smaller, discrete steps is easiest. Here’s a checklist for moving your elderly parents:
- Get a floor plan and measure out their furniture, to make sure that everything will fit.
- Sort items into multiple piles, such as: keep, throw away, donate to family, donate to Goodwill.
- Get rid of all the items that you can, as this will greatly reduce the amount of clutter in the new place.
- Hire movers to pack up and move the items still there; movers will be much faster and easier to work with.
- Notify the senior’s new home about when the move will happen, so elevators can be locked down and parking can be acquired.
- Have movers move the things that your senior family member needs into the new location.
- Have movers move things that your senior family member doesn’t need, but still wants to keep, into long-term storage.
- Organize and assemble items for your family member, including anything needed to accommodate disabilities.
By taking things step-by-step, you should be able to tackle even the most complicated of move. And you should always call professional movers as early as possible, since they will be able to advise you on the best ways to prepare.
- Moving an elderly family member can be difficult, both in terms of emotions and physically moving a large volume of materials.
- Reducing the amount of clutter first, by giving away and throwing away items, can vastly improve the move.
- When you can, hiring a professional is usually best.
While moving elderly parents can be difficult, it’s made easier with the use of a professional moving company. A professional moving company will be able to prepare, move, and even store your items, so all you need to worry about is what is really important: your parent. Contact Tiger Moving today for a quote.
What our clients say
