Stair Lifts For Disabled » Information

Stair lifts for disabled people

Admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:52:20 +0000

Many people consider that to get pass the disability they have, they need to move to a single storey house, or even consider residential care. A stair lift can help you move easily throughout your own house and also to keep your independence at a reasonable cost.

Stair lifts are mechanical devices used to lift disabled people and wheelchairs, up and down the stairs. Basically it is a rail mounted to the treads of the stairs. A lifting platform, or sometimes a chair, is attached to the rail. The platform moves around the rail carrying the person up the stairs.

There are two kinds of stair lifts: standing and seated. The standing ones are usually used by persons without disabilities, elder people with joints problems, or by people who find it hard to climb stairs. This type of stair lift is also small and can be used in narrow stairways. The seated stair lift, used for wheelchairs, is for people who have a hard time standing up, are not allowed to stand up or by disabled people (using wheelchairs to move).

A great solution for people who need to move around the house, but cannot do this because of their disabilities, is handicap stair lifts. If a person has any disability than a stair lift is the answer to that person’s problem.

There are many reasons why people suffering from different affections or disabilities should use a stair lift:

Using the stairs is one of the most frequent causes of accidents around the house.
Elder people can reduce wear of their ankles, knees and other body joints, by using the stair lift.
The main reason disabled or elder people should use the stair lift is because it gives everybody the freedom to move around the house.

No matter what the reasons are, aging, illness or accidents, trying to walk up or down the stairs when you are losing your mobility is most of the times painful and dangerous. In some cases, climbing the stairs is actually impossible, because of the lack of mobility elder people suffer from. The stair lift will give you accessibility throughout the entire house.

All in all, stair lifts are a great invention helping elder, ill or disabled people to regain their mobility around their homes. It allows them to use the stairs, at a reasonable cost, in a safe and relaxing way, without wearing their joints anymore.

Stair lift controls

Admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:19:51 +0000

A stair lift is usually controlled from the chair or platform. You can choose to go up and down, the speed of the lift and putting in on break. Usually it would be some kind of joystick that you move up and down. Many stair lifts also have remote controls that you can use to move the elevator up and down. The advantage of this is that you can use the stair lift to move items up and down the stairs. For elderly and disabled persons this is a great advantage. It is also useful to be able to move the chair down to you from a distance so it’s already there when you reach the stairs.

Stair lift costs and types

Admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:14:52 +0000

There are several different types of stair lifts. The most common type we find in private homes is the straight rail stair lift. As the name indicates this is a stair lifts used for straight stairs. These are cheapest types of stair lifts and usually costs from $2000 to $4000 to install in your home. You can get several types of configurations for these, and the costs depends a lot on that. You can get them both with a seat and a platform for a wheelchair, the platform type is usually more expensive though.

The curved rail stair lifts are used in curved stairs and are a bit more costly. They usually have to be specially manufactured to suit the individual situation. Curved stairs comes in many different types and shapes so it often invovels careful measurement and design to install such a curved stair lift.

Wheelchair platform stair lifts are usually a much heavier construction than a regular stair lift. Wheelchairs can be quite heavy, so a wheelchair platform stair lift have to be able to handle this load. There are advantages to these though, because the user don’t have to have one wheel chair for each floor of his home.

What is a stair lift

Admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:07:28 +0000

A stairlift is a device for helping people getting up and down stairs who are not able to walk. For big stairs this means a rail which is mounted to the threads of the stairs. On this rail there would be a platform where you can place your wheelchair and move up the stair sitting in your wheelchair. For smaller stairs it is usually bot possible to mount rails directly to the threads. A design of stair lifts often used in this case is the rail connected to the site of the stairs or the wall. On to this rail we connect a chair and a motor. Usually you can not get your wheelchair onto this type of stair lift, you would need to get out of your wheelchair and sit down in this chair.

There are other names you might see used to describe this type of equipment like chair lifts and stair gliders. These are the same thing, and should not be confused by the chair lifts used by skiers. The first stair lifts were produced in the US in the 1930s. These were produced by the Inclinator Company of America mostly to polio victims. Today stair lifts are used both by disabled people, elderly people and people in general who have problems walking in stairs.