Welcome to the Stair Lift Guide, where we provide unbiased consumer reports about stair lifts and many other home lifting aids, as well as tips for improving safety on the stairs and reducing the risk of senior falls.Popular Categories
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Stairlifts as a Means of Improving Safety and Accessibility
Stairlifts are a lifting tool used, in most cases, in the home to make it easier and safer for someone to use the staircase. This type of home medical equipment is used to carry someone with limited mobility up the stairway, to help reduce the risk of falls. While most are designed for a single user, stairlifts for wheelchairs are also available, as well as a few standing models, although the former are typically used in commercial settings.
The average staircase in the home can be outfitted with this type of stairlift, as several do-it-yourself kits are avaiable that can be installed relatively easily. The exception to this is curved staircases that have an actual circular bend to them, as these will need a custom built stairlift that can be very expensive and must be, generally, installed by a professional stairlift technician.
Wheelchair Ramps and Exterior Staircase Accessibility
When making a home more accessible, allowing for the user to safely enter and exit the home is essential. For those that use wheelchairs, walkers, or otherwise have difficulty getting around, navigating the front porch can be very difficult.
While there are a number of tools that can help make this exterior stairway easier to navigate, including outdoor stair lifts and vertical platform lifts, a wheelchair ramp is the most common and, often, least expensive device that can be installed to improve accessibility.
A stair lift, as well as other tools offer a number of advantages, but it is hard to beat the simplicity of a wheelchair ramp. Modular metal wheelchair ramps can be quite pricey, often a lot more than you would pay for an outdoor stair lift, but a wooden wheelchair ramp ends up being a cost effective solution. When built properly with quality materials, a wooden wheelchair ramp will last much longer than a stair lift and require less regular maintence.
Options for Improving Staircase Accessibility
The stairs present a very real and difficult obstacle to not just people who use wheelchairs, but also those who are affected by mobility related disorders, like arthritis. improving staircase safety quite literally starts at home and is driven by the individual needs of the individual. Depending on their abilities and needs, you can formulate a plan to help increase accessibility and improve safety.
Staircase Safety Tips for Seniors
For seniors and others with limited mobility, increasing staircase safety is quite important. There are a number of things, some of which are common sense and rather inexpensive, that can make the stairs not only safer, but also easier to use for the elderly. These safety tips focus on this goal of increasing safety and reducing the risk of a fall on the stairs, which is one of the most dangerous areas in the home for a senior.
Understanding and Mitigating the Staircase Risks
In the home, few areas present as many risks or are the cause of as many injuries as the staircase. For the elderly, falls on the stairs are exceptionally common and very often cause serious injury. These sorts of injuries, such as a broken hip, can be very hard to recover from for the elderly, with over 50% requiring some sort of assisted living situation after a serious injury. This is why preventing these falls is so important.
There is no single factor or tool that can be used to prevent falls on the stairs, with a multi-pronged approach being the safest and most effective. This involves understanding the abilities of the senior, ensuring the staircase is in good repair, and potentially using tools or equipment to make the stairs safer. However, in some cases, the best option may be to simply avoid the stairs, as even tools like the stair lift can be difficult to use for some seniors.