If you or someone you love has mobility issues, it can be somewhat disruptive to everyday life. That’s especially true if there are stairs in the house. If you have mobility issues, it can be very difficult to get up and down the stairs. You could be confined to only one floor of your house. That shouldn’t be the case; you should never feel limited in your own house. So, how do you deal with that?
Stairlifts
The number-one complaint from people with mobility issues is that they cannot get up and down the stairs effectively. Furthermore, falls are the most common source of injury for senior citizens. A fall for a senior citizen can be incredibly dangerous and damaging. They can cause lasting problems. The solution is to eliminate the chance of falling. A stairlift is a great way to do that and it is pretty simple.
A stairlift is a chair that you sit in. The chair is on a track that runs up your stairs. The chair is connected to a chain or some other kind of drive shaft. A motor pulls the chain or turns the shaft to pull the chair up and down the stairs. You just sit in the chair and activate it to ride up and down the stairs. There are some features that you should look for in a stairlift in Hertfordshire.
Features
Not all stairlifts are made the same. If you have a curved staircase, you’ll obviously need a stairlift that will allow you to ride up and down a curved staircase. These sometimes need to be specially designed to fit your specific staircase. Even if you have a straight staircase, you need a chair that swivels.
You need a chair on your stairlift to swivel so that you don’t have to twist your body to get in and out of the chair. If it swivels, you can sit comfortably without contorting yourself. Also, you should investigate whether or not the chair will work in a power outage. If there is a storm or other kind of power outage, you don’t want to be stuck on one floor of your house.
Other Items
One of the most common complaints besides the stairs is the difficulty of getting and out of the tub, which is similar to the difficulty of getting on and off the toilet. A simple bar added to your bathroom could make that so much easier. A bar will allow you to add a third point of contact when you are sitting down or standing up. Also, it will allow you to couple your upper body strength with your legs to help you control how you sit and stand. A simple bar installation along with a stairlift can greatly improve your quality of life and it can restore your control over your own house.
Finding a good stairlift is important. It can be difficult to find a good manufacturer of a stairlift; you should look at the range of their options, their prices, and the reviews of their different products to decide which one is right for you.