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Recliner electric lift chairs: Making life in the home less challenging for the elderly and disabled.

Posted on Jul 29, 2009 06:07:06 PM

I guess it would be safe to say that I have been working in my role as a community care worker for over ten years now (has it really been that long?) and my experiences have given me the opportunity to experience the daily issues that disabled and elderly individuals must face in their own home settings. One obvious issue is that of mobility in and around the home. Many individuals are sensitive of how tricky it can be for the disabled to get around their own neighborhood but don’t seem to fully understand the challenges involved for the disabled in getting about one’s own dwelling.

There are many individuals who feel that they are not yet at the point where they really need the assistance of a manual or an electric wheelchair to get around their own residence but they do need the assistance of various mobility aids to live comfortably in their home. One example, an individual might want the help of a mobility walker to help them get from room to room, or even just the assistance of a properly outfitted walking stick to move around without difficulty. I have had a number of clients who are not at the point of needing 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. Otherwise known as electric lift chairs, recliner lift chairs or even as a medical lift chair, in this gentleman’s home this was quite an impressive mobility device. The theory behind the home lift chair recliner is that it offers all of the relief of your typical recliner while simultaneously making it easier for individuals with restricted mobility to sit in and stand up from the chair. The benefits of this to the individual are pretty clear: the person with restricted mobility can now be in a lowered state of personal stress. Whatever the reason that they may find them self needing this extra assistance getting into and out of a chair, whether it is because of some recent surgery (such as back or hip surgery) which has left them with reduced mobility, a debilitating condition that has recuced their movements, or just a general effect of advanced aging on the body, they can now face the task of getting in or out of their chair with a more positve frame of mind. no one should face undue stress simply because they need to get out of their recliner to go and use the bathroom or answer the phone or the front door. 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 lift chair also has a vertical lift control that the user can use to raise the chair up at an angle. By doing this, the occupant 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 handicapped lift chair, but i am not completely comfortable with that more pejorative choice of name for it.

For the sake of the user’s comfort, it is important that the lift chair is a suitable 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 small number of safety features built into nearly all regular home lift chairs at present; Nearly all lift chairs have a constant pressure switch built into their remote control handset. This makes sure that the control only activates when intended: if the handheld control should be dropped or similarly released, the up or down motion will cease, ensuring the user’s safety so that they are not unwillingly toppled out of or lowered into the chair against their will. A further safety feature is the battery backup: if, for whatever reason, there might be a lack of power to the chair – such as a power failure in the immediate vicinity – then the battery backup can take over, allowing the chair’s user to continue operating the chair and not be caught there for any extended amount of time. From what I can recollect, the most customary type of battery used for a backup in these chairs is the nine-volt. Needless to say, just like with smoke detectors, it is essential to remember to switch the battery once a year even if it does not get used.

On the whole there are three different categories of lift chairs. These three categories are used to describe how far back a lift chair can recline. The first sort of lift chair is identified as the two position lift chair. This nature of lift chair is capable of reclining back about 45 degrees. Whereas it is not recommended for sleeping in, this category of chair is conducive to watching television in or for reading a book. The subsequent manner of chair is known as the three position lift chair and is perhaps the most universal one on the market. The backrest reclines nearly horizontally, the consequence being that it is a chair very well suited to reading, watching some television or even sleeping. The third kind of chair which also boasts a regularly available design is called an infinite position lift chair. This kind of chair reclines as far if not a little farther than a 3 position lift chair, nonetheless 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 user. Along the lines of customization, I also consider that it is doable to order a lift chair in a variety of colors and patterns from various manufacturers as well as an assortment of a variety of replacement lift chair parts if the need for such replacements should arise.

I hope that this helps to shed some light on the particulars behind the typical home lift chair and what to watch out for when in the marketplace for such a home mobility aid.