With time, even the most vital senior will eventually need some assistance. Whether in your home or your elder's home, if you are planning the setup of a room for your aging relative, keep these recommendations in mind. Accomplish most of these things before your senior moves into the room and you will find that your (or any other caregiver's) job will be easier.

A "sickroom" for a senior is quite different than what you would set up for someone with the flu or other short term illness. Your senior may not be ill now, but this is a room or an area that may be used for months or years. What you set up now will be what you find yourself working with or around for a long time. It will pay off if you get the right start, because making changes around an elderly person who has "settled in" and doesn't like changes can be a monumental challenge.

Although this will be your parent's room (or grandparent, etc.), as the ultimate caregiver the room must be easy for you to work in. While you may not be providing hands-on care now, you should anticipate that you eventually will. What do you need for that to present the least hardship for you, while still being livable for your senior?

Your senior's room should be on the ground floor. Even if your senior has no problem negotiating stairs now, they will certainly be a problem later. Installing a stair lift may make it easier for your elder to go up and down, but a lift will block half the width of the stairs, and you will still find yourself pounding up and down as your elder's needs increase. Be good to yourself and install your senior on the ground floor if you can.

Of course, if you have the space to install an elevator, that's an option. You'll still be running up and down the stairs in days to come, because you'll likely find the elevator to be too slow.

If your only bathroom is upstairs, then you'll have no choice but to make do.

Make sure the bathroom your senior will be using is accessible. If the door isn't wide enough to permit a wheelchair to go through, widen it now. Even if your senior never uses a wheelchair, odds are that you will some day be assisting him or her to walk through the bathroom door, and you'll need the extra space. 36 inches is recommended. 34 inches will work.

Of course, put in the grab bars and other items that will make the bathroom safer and easier to use.

Seniors like carpeting, because it is soft and warm for their feet. They much prefer carpeting and rugs to bare floor. You, on the other hand, will quickly tire of cleaning carpets and rugs. Sooner or later, nasty spills will be part and parcel of your caregiving experience. If you possibly can, remove carpeting from the room(s) your senior will be using and replace it with a floor that cleans up easily. You will be forever thankful you did.

Hard floors also make using a wheelchair easier.

Covering carpet with plastic is a dangerous "solution," and is never recommended.

Cover your senior's mattress completely with an impervious, sturdy, plastic cover. Incontinence may not be a problem now, but the first incident will come as a surprise, and then the damage is done. Standard mattress covers won't do the job because they are not waterproof on the sides.

Sleeping on plastic is uncomfortable. Place a fabric mattress pad between the full plastic mattress cover and the bottom bed sheet. This will increase comfort, and a thick cloth mattress pad will also absorb and contain liquid. Liquid that absorbs into the pad will not drip down the plastic undercover, making your eventual clean-up easier. For this reason you will always want to have at least two fabric mattress covers on hand.

Disposable pads for chairs and the bed will be important to have. Leakage will ruin an upholstered chair in short order. Pads on the bed reduce the number of times you will have to strip and remake it. Medical pads such as they use in hospitals can be costly. Check out the puppy training pads at your local pet emporium. They are pretty much the same thing and often less expensive. If no one sees the label, no one will be the wiser.

As soon as your senior begins to require help getting in and out of bed, or needs care in bed, get a hospital bed. If a hospital bed is medically necessary Medicare will cover part or all of the cost. Do this before your back gives out, even though your senior will probably object.

An adjustable over-bed table will come in handy whatever your senior's medical condition. Even the healthiest seniors like these for eating in a favorite chair, working on hobbies and projects, and of course for those who spend a lot of time in bed.

If the senior room is some distance from the kitchen, a small refrigerator in the room will be your friend. You won't be running cold drinks and snacks back and forth. A small stocked refrigerator may also increase your privacy if it reduces the amount of wandering around in the evening and at night looking for nibbles.

A combination air-conditioner/heater and a fan for your elder's room will be a godsend for the rest of the family. Your senior can keep his area as warm or as cool as desired, and the rest of the family won't be either sweating or freezing.

These are several of the "big" things you should think about before you set up a room for your senior. It may not be a senior "sickroom" now, but it will pay off to plan ahead for eventual later disability and need for care. You will find several more recommendations for other things you can do to set up a senior's room in the articles listed below.