Step Climbing Powered Lifts For Help In Going From One Level To Another ?

Hello,

Figured some of you folks would have opinions on this. Sr. Citizen kinda question.

Regarding those powered stair climbing lifts/seats to help an individual go from one level to another:

I see Acorn continually advertises.

Are they the "best" ? Are they a Franchise ? Better quality available ? Who ?

What brands to stay away from ?

What features, etc. should I be looking for ?

Thanks, Bob

Reply to
Bob
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I've only known one person to go that route. And, she died shortly after having it installed (ALS).

While it may sound over-the-top, have you considered the alternative: moving to a place that doesn't require you to ascend/descend stairs?

If moving is out of the question, consider rearranging your living space so the folks least capable of making these ascents can live largely/entirely on a single level?

I.e., at that point, you may also be needing other changes to your environment (walk in tub, etc.) that complicate staying in your current digs. Or, other assisted living sorts of services (meal prep, on-site medical care, etc.)

Reply to
Don Y

You may also want to consider a home elevator.

Here are a couple links:

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Reply to
Retired

Per Bob:

I was looking into stair lifts for awhile and came away thinking that their slowness would be so irritating that I would revert to using the stairs.

Is the concern ability to ascent/descend or fear of falling ?

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

The problem is a home elevator requires extensive modifications to the home - and in many smaller homes there is no acceptable way to install one without taking up an unacceptable amount od space..

Chair lifts will fit into virtually ANY house. They are also simple to remove when no longer needed. If one member of the family has trouble with stairs there is no reason to move to "accrssible" housing, at great additional cost.

Reply to
clare

One of the advertisements talks about how important installation is, and that's probably true, but no one brand has the best installers everywhere. Maybe you could loiter around senior centers in your area and find out what they've used, who they've hired, and how happy they are with what they got.

And if you're overweight, lose it. Nothing makes going upstairs harder than extra weight. DAMHIKT.

I have a friend, married, about 68, who bought another house about 5 years ago and put in a chair lift, but she only has to use it for the TV room which she doesn't watch that often. Well I think it was after I saw a wheelchair on their porch that I risked getting in trouble and I called her to talk about how heavy both of us were and how it makes walking harder. She mentioned shooting pains down her leg, which might have nothing to do with weight and might be the reason for the wheel chair. But she also said she thought she was 20 pounds overweight and a friend figured out that she was only 10 pounds. She's crazy. I think she's 40 or 50 pounds overweight and she's deluded herself. But even though that's why I called, to tell her she was fat, I coudln't bring myself to argue with her after she said that. She doesn't wear tight clothes or even remotely form-fitting, so it's hard to tell, but I've had 20 years to watch her change, and I can see her face.

Story not very relevant to you: When my mother was looking for assisted living, we went one place that had been a mansion. IIRC, it had the dining room and lounge on the first floor but all the bedrooms were upstairs. There was a chair lift, not very fast in the first place probably, but when it got to the landing, it had to go maybe 25 feet to the other end of the landing. I told you it was a mansion. I thought there should be a way to transfer to the A train.

She didn't move there and for some reason I don't know, it closed and a mosque bought it. But they never moved in, and it's vacant now.

Reply to
micky

I have other friends who just sold their co-op on East 57th St. in NYC. It was so big that it was split in two a few decades ago, but he bought the other half and put it back together again.

Now he moved to the south where they're amazed at how cheap housing is. I told them to move to a one-story house --- he's about 64 and he bicycles all the time, and she's almost that old and not fat at all, but he doesn't seem to listen. He cares more about architecture. Some day they will be old, and it could be any minute if one has some illness, God forbid.

Reply to
micky

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Reply to
Ed

On Wed, 7 Oct 2015 03:54:22 -0400, Ed wrote in

Eat too much food.

Eat less food and exercise.

There, I saved you $9.19.

Reply to
CRNG

Per micky:

Been there, done that.... But you have performed due diligence...

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Per micky:

One of my #2 daughter's friends was borderline-morbidly obese.

I told her to imagine carrying a cinder block around all day.

Somehow she recalled it as carrying around an automobile tire - which is actually a better analog IMHO.... both weigh 35-40 pounds, but it's easier to imagine a tire around one's waist than carrying a cinder block under an arm....

Anyhow, to cut to the chase, she went on some sort of diet, lost over 40 pounds, and reported back that my analogy was right on the money. How she knew that, escapes me - unless she had a job moving automobile tires around.... but it does point to the reality of how much work it is to carry that extra weight, no matter how conveniently it is distributed across one's body.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

That's certainly got to be part of it, but the whole picture may not be quite so simple.

Read "Fat Chance" by Robert Lustig.

The basic premise is that the body's tendency to quickly convert raw sugar to fat is a major player in the obesity epidemic that is sweeping the world.

Lustig is no lightweight: he's a professor and pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

There seems to be a REALLY strong resistance to changing lifestyle to acknowledge current and EXPECTED future changes in abilities. I don;t know if this is simply "denial" or some fear that accepting the change "before necessary" will result in some "lost opportunity"?

Reply to
Don Y

That might be it . She's from NYC and he's from Brooklyn, and they've both lived in 1-story apartments all their lives, even if the story was on the 8th floor or so. So they've never had to go upstairs.

Except they're renting now, something so small they have boxes in the way everywhere. I don't remember if's a house or how many floors. I should have started from there as an argument.

I talked to him, but not her, because he's my friend and she's just someone he married 20 years ago. Should I email her, or is that just causing trouble?

Reply to
micky

On the theory that the thought of having to move when one is old if inferior to more likely living in the same home even when old and weak, amd that that choice has never even occurred to her.

Reply to
micky

IMO, it's *their* decision -- "none of your business".

If you want to casually discuss YOUR OPINIONS on the subject WITH YOUR FRIEND (not including his wife so he's not "on the spot" between you and her) that's possible. He may have "a plan". Or, he may also be in denial -- or simply not want to deal with The Inevitable.

I don't expect to be dying any time soon (who does? :> ) but have already become concerned about ridding the house of surplus "stuff" simply to make it easier when/if we want to make that decision.

Reply to
Don Y

Per Don Y:

Based on my own recent experiences and the observations of my #2 daughter who works in a retirement home, I think it's human nature.

The popular vision of aging seems to be a graph that goes downward from left to right - a straight line with a steady slope.

My own experience has been that the slope gets interrupted with periodic vertical drops followed by vertical rises as one recovers from whatever caused the drop - but the line never quite rises to where it was.

For me, the epiphany was realizing that I'm not going to "Get over this and get back into shape".... In fact, I will probably get over the critical part of something and hopefully will get back into some semblance of shape.... but the fact is that I'm never going to be where I was before it happened and next year is going to be worse and the year after that.....

Once somebody accepts that they're on the way down and they are never, ever coming all the way back up, they become free to do more realistic planning and coping.

I am still hanging on the notion of dying in this house even if I become "That crazy old guy who hasn't cut the lawn in two weeks" .... but that is because I have a thing about institutions and giving up control of my life to people I don't think much of. If I die five years earlier living here than I would have in an institution I'll take that.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

That may apply to somebody, but not to me!

I've got that down already. I don't fertilize and I don't water, and at least with the amount of rain we've been having, it only needs mowing 3 or 4 times during the summer.

Me, too. But I don't see it as 5 years. Maybe 3 weeks.

Assuming I'm still healthy when I die.

I know people who have lived up to these standards too, One man was 94 lived at home till he died. His wife wore high heels into her 90's, two inch heels but still, and she drove into her 90's too. She got sick when she was 98 and spent some time in the hospital and a nursing home, but then went to live with her son and daughter in law when she was 99. They built a new wing to the house for her. But then the two women fought over the kitchen** and one had to lose. **Or maybe they didn't fight but the older woman didn't like not having her own. She died at

99 and 8 months.

I don't expect 99, but 90 would be nice.

Reply to
micky

And, the effort required to "elevate" that line increases with age. It's harder to recover "as much" as you age.

We lost a friend to ALS recently. This as painfully obvious to her: "Today is the BEST day of the rest of my life" I.e., tomorrow WILL be worse -- and tha twill be true for EVERY tomorrow! (and, in a very

*big* way... not just "little aches and pains", etc.)

I think people still want to think it won't be as bad or will progress much more slowly than it inevitably does. This was even true of our ALS friend -- even after she'd lost the ability to walk, stand, eat, etc.

I had a friend succumb to esophageal Ca a few years back. He was amazingly frank with himself and others regarding his future outlook (another "not pretty" way to go). Yet, I'm sure he hoped it would be a bit better or a bit longer than he KNEW it was likely to be.

I don't think the timespan is the issue (at least, not with me). Rather, it's the quality of life that I'm more concerned with. I am fond of asking "why do I get out of bed each morning" (or, pondering why *others* bother to get out of bed -- if their lives are as "miserable" as they suggest). I fear the day that my answer is "force of habit" -- and nothing else!

Reply to
Don Y

realtors tell home owners to remove assisted living devices that arent in use.

when buyers see a home with say a handicap ramp in front of home it instantly turns them off, no matter how convenient it can be

Reply to
bob haller

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