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What if you could significantly reduce the risk of a stressful, costly emergency room visit with just a few changes around your house? What if you could take the ER out of here at home? Let's talk about it. My name's Aaron Murphy and I'm an architect, certified aging and place specialist and the owner of ForeverHome. Falls are the leading cause of injury and hospital emergency room visits over the entire course of 2023 and accounted for over 8 million ER visits, which is a substantial part of the total of accident injuries in homes. The average cost of an injury from a fall exceeds $30,000 when you look at hospital bills, rehab, lost wages, etc. Collectively, falls cost the US healthcare system billions of dollars annually. Many of our houses are fraught with fall risks, slippery floors, cluttered walkways, unsafe stairs, poor lighting, those are the kinds of things that cause the crash. As you get older, these hazards are even more perilous. As our eyesight gets less light, as our eyes yellow, those definitions of edges and corners fade, which makes our homes the way they're designed now, less able to keep you from an accident. But there's simple modifications we can do that would make a world of difference. Think about non-slip mats, adequate lighting, sturdy handrails. Some of this stuff requires an upfront investment. Maybe you want to look at a roll-in shower, a zero threshold shower, or look at the whole home for accessibility. The cost is still minimal compared to the cost of the potential of the fall and the medical and emotional strain of what happens after you crash. A safer home is more comfortable and conducive to your independence, especially as we age. It's not just about avoiding the ER, it's about ensuring the higher quality of life. Knowing your home is equipped to minimize fall risks is brilliant for peace of mind for you and your loved ones. We have dozens of cases every year where we are asked at our architecture firm to look at the modifications to keep a loved one safe. Many professionals talk about the importance of fall prevention. There's tons of age tech going on right now on how to protect you if you fall, how to notify somebody in your family if you fall. That's been going on for decades. I remember in the 80s, there was a commercial, I've fallen and I can't get up. And it was about a push button lanyard around your neck. Problem there is that folks won't wear wearables for tech necessarily, although the iWatch and smartphone watches are getting closer. My point is take proactive steps, make your house safer. Let's take the ER out of staying here. Invest in your future, invest in your health, invest in your wellbeing, and let's keep everybody home a little bit longer. If you need your home assessed, we do that at foreverhome-us.com. We can do it nationwide thanks to technology and the ability of an adult child to scan a house and get us a house plan. So we can consult for you anywhere in the United States. I'm here to help. Let us know if you need guidance. If you want to learn more about all the ways you can successfully age in place come visit us at our website, foreverhome-us.com. If you liked what we have to say here or any of our other video blogs, go ahead and click like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and get plugged in at Forever Home with our newsletter so you can stay in the loop. Thanks for joining me today. We'll keep pushing to create environments in our home that keep us healthier, happier, independent, and with autonomy as long as it's safe to do so. Take care.