Senior News Line: When do we become too old to climb ladders?

Months ago I’d made my resolutions list for 2024, carefully picking options that I could surely accomplish this year.

I chose things like adopting a kitten pal for my cat, selling my father’s coin collection and hiring my handyman neighbor to paint the bathroom.

Thus far, it’s the bathroom painting that is causing the greatest annoyance and hesitation. Why, I keep wondering, can’t I do it myself?

I’ve painted many, many rooms over the years and done a fine job. But dare I climb a ladder again?

I even went to the internet for support that would tell me it’s OK at my age to climb a ladder and apply paint to the walls.

An Australian study cut right to the chase with statistics about how many over the age of 65 had died from injuries sustained after falling from a ladder, not to mention the list of possible ladder-related injuries that put many others in the hospital.

A U.S. home-care website was aimed at the adult children who need to convince elderly parents to stay off ladders, and suggested citing statistics about deaths and injuries.

Should that not work, said the website, pull in reinforcements like doctors and extended family to convince the renegade senior to stay off ladders.

The National Institutes of Health even chimed in with a study about the risks of ladder use by seniors and went so far as to analyze the types of dangerous tasks seniors might do that involve ladders.

That’s where I part company with the NIH’s study: I’m not interested in trimming tree limbs or cleaning leaves out of gutters. I only want to paint a bathroom.

Update: I will not be painting the bathroom. Neither will my handyman neighbor. That neighbor, a good 20 years younger than I am, fell off a ladder and is now facing shoulder surgery.

The bathroom will stay as it is.