Wheelchair Lifts To Keep You Mobile
Nov 8th, 2007 by emgra
People with physical disabilities face mobility problems on a daily basis, both inside and outside of their homes. The difficulties encountered depend on the nature of the persons disability. One other significant factor is the weight of the person. For severely obese people, getting in or out of bed frequently requires the use of a patient lift.
The most basic form of lift is a mechanical patient lift, which requires a degree of physical effort by the patients companion or caregiver. A more user friendly type of lift is a motorized patient lift which is operated from a controller and relieves the carer of a lot of physical effort.
In conjunction with the lift, some form of sling to lift the patient is required … these come in different shapes and sizes depending on the patients disability.
Moving about the home is made easier because the obstacles are known and solutions can be found. The biggest problem faced indoors is moving to another level or up stairs… to overcome this, many people install electric stair lifts. Although this is relatively costly, it greatly increases the users freedom of access.
For small heights it’s possible to use a movable wheelchair ramp but for greater heights a electric wheelchair lifts may be required.
Going outdoors presents a similar set of obstacles, but usually more difficult to solve due to the variety of environments that can be encountered. Also, traveling to places for the first time is particularly difficult as no knowledge of the obstacles is known in advance.
You will probably find that having an outside wheelchair lift fitted, will make parking your vehicle more difficult due to the extra length.
For wheelchair lifts installed in the home there are a number of important requirements which can be found in the ADA specifications. This is necessary for home wheelchair lifts due to the safety aspects involved.
The process of getting in and out of the car / van is also one that needs to be catered for … frequently some form of powered lift is required.