Aging-in-place has been a buzzword for some time now, especially when you consider that baby boomers are reaching the age of 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day. Accessible bathrooms are a popular place to start when modifying a home for accessibility and independent living.

One trend that is noticeable in new and modified homes is the addition of a walk-in or roll-in accessible shower. These are great for wheelchair users, but even for walking in, they are safer and easier to enter and exit.

Because the main barrier when entering a shower is the side of the tub or threshold enclosure, users must step over it, which can be difficult. Installing a zero-threshold entry removes this barrier.

While one potential problem has been solved, another one may have been created, and that is the problem of water spilling out of the shower and onto the bathroom floor. Without a shower threshold, there’s nothing to keep the water inside the shower.

The easiest way to correct this is by installing a Collapsible Shower Dam and using Weighted Shower Curtains. The shower dam fits over the threshold and the shower curtains hang tight and low against the shower dam. The shower dam is only an inch and a half high but it’s easy to walk over and keeps the water at bay.

A collapsible shower dam also works well for wheelchair users because it collapses when the wheels roll over it and then pops back up in place. This can eliminate the need to perform a transfer into the shower from the wheelchair to a shower bench or chair.

The trend to walk-in accessible showers is here to stay for many new and modified homes. They fit nicely from an aging-in-place perspective as they are attractive and functional, and they are easier to use by people of all ages and abilities. A collapsible shower dam should be standard on most barrier-free shower designs.

You can find information and purchase details here:
www.AccessibleConstruction.com/services/bathrooms/25.html

Back in August we showed a Modular Ramp installation for a client that needed a wheelchair ramp to get up his stairs. In this instance, a straight ramp wouldn’t fit because we needed too much ramp length and there wasn’t enough space. So we installed a switchback Modular Ramp that traveled back and forth, providing enough length to decrease the slope angle.

What we didn’t show was that the other side of the house had an even smaller area, making it impossible to install any kind of ramp. No problem. For really tight spaces a vertical Platform Lift or Porch Lift is often better than a wheelchair ramp.

Porch Lift at the bottom position

Vertical Lifts are great because they require minimal effort on the part of the wheelchair user or caregiver. Simply open the gate at the bottom, roll in, close the gate behind you and push the button. The lift rises up to the next level and out you go at the top. They also promote independent living because there is no need for a caregiver to help push up a ramp. The user can do everything at the touch of a button located on the control panel.

Platform Lift at the top position

Platform Lifts are safe and reliable and can be installed both indoors and outside. They have a 750-pound weight capacity and come with a non-skid deck surface. They are recommended for commercial and residential applications and offer an ideal way for companies to come into compliance.

Vertical Lift view from the top landing

If safety is a concern, Platform Lifts can be safer than ramps depending on the physical condition of the user or the caregiver. They require little or no physical strength as the motor does all the work and problems going too fast down a ramp or falling backwards are eliminated.

When you don’t have enough space for a wheelchair ramp, consider going vertical with a Porch Lift or Vertical Platform Lift.

The Remodeling Show will be held at Lakeside Center at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois from October 13 to October 15, 2011.

If you’ve never been, the Remodeling Show features the latest products and offers a chance for home builders and remodelers a chance to speak with manufacturers’ technical experts and other remodeling professionals. It is the only national event serving residential remodeling experts.

You can get more information about the show on their website at: www.RemodelingShow.com

We’re very excited to be exhibiting at this year’s Remodeling Show. If you’re in Chicago, visit Accessible Construction in Booth #644.

We will have select accessible bathroom products on hand and discuss how a Collapsible Water Retainer for a shower threshold keeps water in the shower and off the bathroom floor.

We’ll have an example of Weighted Shower Curtains and you can see how they work with a water dam for keeping floors dry.

We’ll also have a Toilevator that raises an existing toilet 3.5 inches instead of buying a whole new toilet. Perfect for remodelers.

One of the most popular modifications for accessible home remodelers is widening doorways to create more entrance space or to accommodate wheelchairs.

An offset hinge is expandable and swings away giving an extra two inches to the width of the doorway.

There is also a commercial heavy-duty expandable hinge for garage doors or the front door of the home. We’ll have both types of expandable hinges on display.

If you’re at the show, stop by and introduce yourself. This is a great show to meet new people where we can all help each other learn about the latest products and ideas for our industry.

Building or buying a wheelchair ramp isn’t difficult but working within the required Accessibility Guidelines developed by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) can make it challenging.

The Accessibility Guidelines should always be followed, which is why it’s so important to only use contractors that know and abide by the ADA guidelines. The guidelines are in place for the safety of the wheelchair user. Many people try to get around the ADA specifications to save costs, while others simply don’t know about them or understand why they are so important.

Safety is the number one consideration for wheelchair ramps, followed by ease of use. A ramp that is too steep is probably too difficult to use by most people, or will be as the user ages and declines in strength. Steep ramps can also cause the user to tip over backwards when going up or gain too much speed when going down.

The ADA Accessibility Guidelines state that for every 1 foot (12 inches) in height, the ramp must be at least 12 feet long. This gives an incline ratio of 1:12. While this is the maximum incline allowed, many times it is better to double that number to 1 foot of height for 24 feet of length. This number works better for elderly or weaker users.

This sounds fairly simple to follow until you see just how fast the ramp length can add up. If you need to clear an outside set of stairs that are only two feet high, you need at least 24 feet of ramp length. What if you don’t have 24 feet of space directly in front of the stairs? In many cases you won’t have that much room so it’s time to get creative. Modular ramps are one solution where the ramp travels back and forth from side to side. Another option is to use a Vertical Platform Lift or Incline Lift.

Another consideration often overlooked for wheelchair ramps is the weight capacity. Will the user need a caregiver to push up and down the ramp? If so, it’s important to assess the weight of the chair with the user in it as well as the weight of the caregiver. The same goes for motorized scooters.

Don’t ignore the landings at the top and bottom of the ramp when thinking about building or buying a wheelchair ramp. Landings should be flat and level and provide a rail or wall at the top so the user doesn’t go off the side.

Wheelchair ramp landings at the bottom should be free from anything that could injure the user if they lose control on the way down or build up too much speed. Again the ramp incline is important to prevent accidents and injuries. If it is too steep at the bottom where it meets the landing, the front wheels could get caught and tipping over would cause serious injury.

Raised edges are always necessary for whelchair ramps, and handrails along the entire length of the wheelchair ramp provide the most safety for the user and caregiver.

When installing permanent or semi-permanent ramps, note the conditions where the ramp will be used. Outside ramps in areas that get a lot of rain or snow should provide good traction and be weather resistant which is why so many are made of aluminum. It is lightweight, durable, and holds up well in inclement weather. Make sure it provides good traction though, and if it doesn’t already have it, ask about applying a traction material.

Wooden wheelchair ramps can be custom installed to match the home or area where they will be installed. These are very attractive but the same considerations apply for weight, traction and durability.

While it can be challenging to meet the ADA Accessibility Guidelines, it is imperative for the safety and ease of use for the user to be ADA compliant. There’s always a solution to be found even in a limited space. An experienced wheelchair ramp company or builder will help you find a way to make it work safely. Always ask for examples of previous work just to be sure you’ll get exactly what you need and want.

The Challenge for this project was a 90-foot long driveway that was narrow and steep with no way to turn the car around. The Solution was to install a 76-foot Bruno Outdoor Stair Lift.

90-foot driveway leading up to the home

Our client was an 80-year old couple with a private summer home. As the picture shows, the driveway leading up to the house was very long and narrow making it difficult to back all the way out of the driveway, so they rarely used it to drive the full distance to the house.

With the mailbox at the entrance to the driveway 90 feet away from the house, it made it difficult to walk the length of the driveway to get the mail. It was also difficult to walk all the way to the home from the curb where the car was parked.

We contacted Bruno Independent Living Aids with the dimensions and they custom fabricated the 76-foot track for us. A Bruno Outdoor Stair Lift 2010E was attached to the track. It was the longest outdoor stair lift for them and for us. The track begins at the front of the driveway and travels all the way down the driveway to within fifteen feet of the house.

Stairway and landing pad during construction

Near the house, there was a dramatic change of slope where the stair lift track ended. A custom stairway, landing, and cement pad was fabricated so the landing was level with the sidewalk leading from the stair lift to the front door of the house.

View of the landing pad and sidewalk leading to the house during construction

The stair lift can now be used for getting mail and traveling back and forth to the car. Not only does this make it safer than walking the long driveway but it’s easier and safer to use the car because it doesn’t need to be backed up the 90-foot length of the driveway.

Many Thanks to Bruno for providing us with the custom track for another big stair lift installation. We recently worked with them on a curved stair lift in Los Angeles with 9-custom turns.

While there are many possible configurations and components that make up a Wheelchair Shower, here is an illustration of one way that shows a Shower Dam with other important products.

It’s also important to note that other people not in a wheelchair will probably use the shower but they may have some sort of handicap that can take advantage of many of the same products.

Beginning near the top of the photo is a Hand-Held Shower, which is easier to use from a seated position in a chair than a static showerhead that doesn’t move.

A Horizontal Grab Bar inside the shower provides support for pulling the wheelchair in and out of the shower and for turning around. It also provides support for a caregiver that may be helping.

Another Vertical Grab Bar is positioned outside the shower for the same reasons. Using both horizontal and vertical grab bars together is always a good idea whenever possible.

While the floor slopes inward to the drain from all sides, there is a chance that some of the water will spill out of the shower onto the bathroom floor. Water outside the shower can make tile floors slippery or carpeted floors wet and soggy.

To keep water inside the shower, a Collapsible Water Retainer Shower Dam at the shower threshold keeps water inside the shower. It collapses down when rolled over by a wheelchair then pops back up into place. This is an important component of a wheelchair shower. A Shower Dam can also used for walk-in showers to keep water in the shower, but some of them have a raised threshold that needs to be stepped over and is difficult to roll over in a wheelchair.

While the Shower Dam works great for keeping floor water in the shower, Weighted Shower Curtains make them complete by keeping water spray in the shower. These curtains have heavy weights in the bottom and they form a better seal against the Shower Dam. They are easier to use than a shower door for entering and exiting the shower in a wheelchair and better accommodate a caregiver.

A lot of wheelchair showers have a shower pan that is flush with the bathroom floor. In this case, the shower floor is an inch or two higher than the bathroom floor making it difficult to roll in. Lego Ramps were used to make the roll into the shower much easier. Lego Ramps are very lightweight and come in small sections that can be cut to fit or stacked on top of each other. They are very durable and have holes to help with water drainage.

A close-up shot from the front better shows how the Shower Dam, Weighted Shower Curtains, and Lego Ramps work together.

As we stated, there are many products and combinations that can be used for making a shower wheelchair accessible. It’s important to assess the bathroom layout and the needs of the user(s). Knowing that so many products are available has made it easier and safer than it once was merely a decade ago.

We recently installed a Bruno Curved Stair Lift in Los Angeles for a client with 7 levels in their home. We contacted Bruno Independent Living Aids with the specifications and details about the home and they manufactured nine custom turns for us.

Bruno said it was one of the largest custom curved jobs they had manufactured. We know it was definitely the largest curved stairlift installation in Los Angeles we have performed. With seven levels in the home, some only several steps while others covering entire flights of stairs, one of the toughest parts of the job was providing accurate measurements.

Curved stairlifts allow people to remain independent in their own homes. Most people only have one flight of stairs to negotiate, sometimes outside, and many times they only need straight stair lifts to go up and down a single stairway.

Curved stair lifts can be installed on circular stairways or with multiple levels and turns. Adding a single curve at the top or bottom of a straight staircase allows the chair to be moved around the corner and out of the way of the stairway. This keeps the stairway free for foot traffic when the stairlift isn’t in use.

For this installation, the stairlift had to cover a lot of area and many turns. Bruno does an excellent job of working with difficult situations and providing the customization to make it happen.

Most of the time a stairlift is installed AFTER a disability warrants a need for a stairlift. The interesting part of this installation is that the client didn’t have a known disability. They are preparing their home now to age-in-place. They currently do a lot of traveling and will use the stairlift for moving luggage up and down the various flights of stairs. If there is a need in the future for a stairlift to move people up and down the stairs, everything will already be in place and they can remain in their own home.

You may not have a need for a stairlift yet, but for many people, the benefits of a stairlift allow them the remain independent in their own homes.

For more information about this custom curved stairlift in Los Angeles or how you can get started to age-in-place in your own home call us at (310) 215-3332.

Wheelchair showers provide access for wheelchair users to roll in and out of the shower but many times there isn’t much room in the bathroom. A two-wall wheelchair shower solves this problem by providing a wider opening for getting in and out of the shower.

As you can see in the photo, this bathroom has limited space and a three-wall shower would make it difficult to enter. By using a weighted shower curtain that acts as the third wall, the corner can be used as an entrance.

The shower uses a collapsible water retainer for the threshold. Collapsible shower dams, as they’re sometimes called, provide for a no-threshold entrance and keeps water inside the shower instead of spilling out onto the bathroom floor.

This shower has a horizontal grab bar on the far wall and a folding grab bar at the entrance. This folds up and out of the way when entering or exiting the shower and folds down when needed inside the shower.

A hand-held shower head is mounted on the wall within easy reach for wheelchair users.

The overhead photo shows how the water retainer and shower curtain work together. The curtain is weighted and bumps up against the shower dam to keep water inside the shower. By replacing the third wall with the shower curtain it makes this shower usable with a wheelchair. Without this combination the toilet would be in the way and wouldn’t allow the wheelchair to pass.

When space is limited in the bathroom but wheelchair access is needed, consider a two-wall wheelchair shower. It creates space that you didn’t know you had and provides the accessibility needed for independent living.

When thinking about aging-in-place, it’s obvious that the bathroom is the first place in the home to examine followed by the kitchen. These rooms are extremely important because most of the accidents in the home happen there. But don’t forget to assess the bedroom.

An accessible bedroom is important because many accidents also happen there for a variety of reasons. When getting up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night to get out of bed, chances are good the lights are off and its difficult to see. Keep a touch light next to the bed that is easy to reach and find in the dark.

Speaking of walking in the dark, always have a clear pathway for walking around the bedroom. It’s easy to see area rugs and carpets during the day but at night they’re a tripping accident waiting to happen. Keep them out of the bedroom if at all possible.

Even for people with few mobility issues, getting out of bed from a sleep or rest can cause blood pressure spikes or dips and can be accompanied by dizziness. Always take a moment to sit up for a minute before standing.

There are plenty of ways to make a bedroom barrier-free. If you’re planning to live in your own home for years to come, here are 8 Aging-in-Place Products For the Bedroom:

1. Bed Cane Bed Rail (above)
There are plenty of products that can be used near the bed to aid in standing or sitting. One of our favorites is a combination Bed Cane Bed Rail. It serves as a bed rail when sleeping to keep from falling out of bed. It also swivels out to act as a bed cane to help with standing.

2. Designer Hospital Bed Rails (above)
Designer Hospital Bed Rails serve the same purpose – to keep you in bed. People get used to staying in bed when they have a hospital visit and the beds are all equipped with bed rails. Most people don’t think about it but you can have the same protection at home.

3. Designer Hi-Low Hospital Bed (above)
On the subject of hospital beds, we’ve been offering Designer Hi-Low Hospital Bed to our customers for years. They function just the same as what you use in an actual hospital but the quality is top notch. There’s a reason hospitals use this type of bed and it will serve you well at home too.

4. Bed Caddie Bed Pull-up Strap (above)
If you don’t have a hospital bed or lifting mechanism but have trouble sitting up, the Bed Caddie Bed Pull-up Strap aids in sitting up in bed or even simply rolling over. Some even use it for light exercise. It’s very inexpensive, easy to install, and provides something to grab when trying to sit up in bed.

5. Super Pole – Floor to Ceiling Support Pole
The Super Pole can actually be used in any room in the home but we see it used in the bedroom more than any other room. It works great for getting in and out of bed but can be outfitted with a bedside tray or trapeze bar for added functionality. It won the Supplier’s Choice Award at Medtrade in Atlanta in 1996 and 1997.

6. Bedroom Overhead Ceiling Lift (above)
For those who need quite a bit of help getting out of bed, a Bedroom Overhead Ceiling Lift is a lifting mechanism that supports an entire person. While some use it to aid themselves, it can be used by a caregiver for moving a person in and out of bed completely. We’ve done installations that can lift a person out of bed and move them to a bathroom for bathing and then back to bed again. The entire system runs on an overhead ceiling track.

7. Pull Down Closet Rack (above)
Do you have trouble reaching clothes in the bedroom closet? A Pull Down Closet Rack brings the clothes down to your level for easy reach. When finished just move the clothes back up to their original position. This can be used for a closet in any room and is popular with people confined to wheelchairs.

8. Offset Door Hinges
This is an item that can be installed on any doorway in the home to widen it an extra two inches just by changing door hinges. Widening every doorway probably isn’t necessary but if a wheelchair or scooter is needed to move in and out of the bedroom, you will probably need to widen the doorway. It’s usually easy to see by checking the door or doorway for scrapes where the wheels or handrests fit through. Offset Door Hinges are a cheap and easy alternative to tearing out the doorway.

There are so many products available to making a bedroom safer and more acccessible. These are some of our favorites and many can be installed without expert help. Take a look around at your own bedroom or the bedroom of your parents to see where things could be improved.

For seniors and people with disabilities, the kitchen can be an unfriendly place. Sure, more people have accidents in the bathroom but the kitchen isn’t far behind. Here are some tips to make the kitchen safer and easier to use by making things accessible.

Buying the right refrigerator can make a big impact. Look for a water and ice dispenser on the outside. Doors should open all the way to 180 degrees so it’s easy to get to food inside and side-by-side doors are the best for people in wheelchairs because it’s impossible to reach a freezer that is on top. Also look for shelves that can be adjusted by turning a knob.

Customized extension drawers that pull out or a Lazy Susan make things easier to find and reach. Lazy Susan turntables can be bought at most home improvement stores and pull-out extensions drawers are fairly simple to install.

A Step Stool with a long handle is a safe way to reach items from cupboards. Look for a single step stool with a wide base to prevent falling ar tipping over. A sturdy handle gives something to hold on to for additional stability.

If you want to get a little creative, install electric kitchen cabinets that raise and lower at the touch of a button. When you need something from the cabinet, push the button and they lower to counter-top level. Push the button again and they raise up to their normal position. While ideal for wheelchair users, electric cabinets can be used by anyone in the family, even children.

An adjustable-height electric sink works in the same manner. Push a button and the sink lowers for convenient washing of dishes. Push the button again and it returns to counter level. Again, ideal for wheelchair users and children.

A good general rule to follow is keep food and frequently used kitchen items within reach. Heavy things should always be placed in lower cabinets and never up high.

Not everybody is going to add electric sinks and cabinets to their kitchen but it’s nice to know there are kitchen modifications available for those that truly need them. Consult with a barrier-free home modification specialist for ways to make your kitchen safer and more accessible.