Jul 28 2009
Enabling of the disabled through mobility aids: Sharing my growing awareness of day-to-day life for those with disabilities.
I am a community Health Care worker, and as such there are times when I find myself thinking about just how much I have learned about the field in my ten years working in it. It is at those times that it really hits me how much I have picked up without really realizing or noticing it. As a reflection of this, I would like to take the opportunity that this blog affords me to share here some of the things that I have gleaned from my work. In other words, I would like to use this blog to blather on a bit for a few posts about some different aspects of life for the disabled and more specifically how they cope day to day in the community.
As I said, I have been working as a community care worker for close to ten years now and this experience has given me the opportunity to experience the daily issues that disabled and elderly individuals must face in their own homes. One evident problem is that of mobility in and around the home. Many people are aware of how challenging it can be to move just about the neighborhood but dont seem to be conscious of the challenges involved in getting around one’s own residence. There are many individuals who feel that they are not yet at the point where they really need the assistance of an electric or mechanical wheelchair to get about their own residence but they do need the assistance of various mobility aids to live comfortably at home. For example, someone might want the help of a mobility walker to assist them in getting from room to room, or even just the assistance of a properly designed walking stick to get around without struggle. I have had a number of clients who are not at the point of requiring either a motorized wheelchair or mobility scooter but do need the help of a walker to move around and to get out and about from their home and into the community. Someone who doesn’t need to be constantly seated but who does need to be able to rest after traveling for a short distance benefits from the walker’s ability to serve as a seating surface while out and about performing their daily duties.
One thing that I recollect one of my elder clients having in his home was a powered lift chair. This was quite an impressive mobility device. The theory behind the home lift chairs is that it offers all of the relief of your typical recliner while simultaneously making it easier for those with restricted mobility to sit in and stand up from their chair. The standard lift chair recliners allow the user to recline the backrest and the footrest of the chair but they go further than that. The typical lift chair also includes a lift control mechanism that allows the user of the chair to raise it up at an angle vertically. By doing this, the user is slowly and steadily raised up in the chair to a near standing position allowing him or her to easily leave the chair. This vertical raising motion makes sure that the occupant is able to safely remain in the chair until it has finished moving. When it is time to once again sit in the chair, the controls can be used to slowly and steadily lower the chair into a comfortable sitting position. It is important that the chair offers the user slow and steady movement so that a feeling of security is maintained for the user. This kind of mobility aid has also been described as a handicap lift chair, but i am not completely comfortable with that more pajorative choice of name for it.
For the sake of the comfort of the occupant, it is essential that the lift chair is an appropriate fit for the intended user. It is now possible to purchase, without any real difficulty, a lift chair that matches the shape and size (height and weight) of the intended occupant. Failure to match the chair to its user can compromise the occupant’s safety. On the subject of safety, there are a few safety features built into most standard home lift chairs nowadays; Most lift chairs have a constant pressure switch built into their remote contol handset. This makes sure that the control only activates when wished-for: if the hand held control should be dropped or similarly released, the up or down movement will end, ensuring the user’s safety so that they are not unintentionally toppled out of or lowered into the chair against their will. A different safety feature is the battery backup: if, for whatever reason, there should be a lack of power to the chair - such as a power failure in the immediate vicinity - then the battery backup can kick in, allowing the chair’s occupant to continue operating the chair and not be stranded there for any lengthened amount of time. From what I can remember, the most widespread type of battery used for a backup in these chairs is the nine-volt. Obviously, just like with smoke detectors, it is key to remember to replace the battery once a year even if it does not get used.
Ordinarily there are three different categories of lift chairs. These three categories are used to explain how far back a lift chair can stretch out. The first type of lift chair is well-known as the two position lift chair. This variety of lift chair is capable of reclining back about 45 degrees. Although it is not recommended for sleeping in, this style of chair is favorable to viewing television in or for reading a book. The succeeding class of chair is known as the three position lift chair and is perhaps the most familiar one on the market. The backrest reclines nearly horizontally, the result being that it is a chair splendidly suited to reading, watching some television or even sleeping. The third category of chair which also boasts a commonly available design is called an infinite position lift chair. This model of chair reclines as far if not slightly farther than a 3 position lift chair, though the footrest is capable of moving independently. In other types of lift chairs, the footrest moves in conjunction with the backrest, but infinite position lift chairs allow these two components to be adjusted separately. This makes the lift chair much more customizable for the occupant. Akin to the subject of customization, I also think that it is viable to order a lift chair in a assortment of colors and patterns from a number of manufacturers in addition to an assortment of a choice of replacement lift chair parts if the necessity for such replacements should arise.
