A Home Feature is Only a Barrier if a Person Can’t Use the Feature Safely

Watch on your mobile device >>

Steps actually provide access to your home if you are able to use them.  They aren’t a barrier unless you are unable to use them safely.   That is one of the interesting things to consider when you think about residential accessibility.   Home features like steps, deep tubs, or under cabinet storage, that may be very helpful to us during one phase of our lives, may become a barrier in another phase or if we become injured. That is why there isn’t a list of home features that must be changed to make a home truly accessible to everyone.  Everyone is different.

Universal Design is a concept of making an environment as useable as possible for as many people as possible, but residential accessibility is a personal customization to match a personal need.  What it takes to make a home accessible for different people may have similarities, but will vary based on an individual’s goals, skills, medical condition, preferences, budget, social environment, and existing physical environment.  When you are planning to make modifications or choosing equipment to reduce barriers in your home, you should follow a process we call “prescriptive access design” .   Our handout “5 Tips For Successful Home Accessibility Remodeling” is a good starting place.  Make sure the solution you choose matches your goals, current and future abilities, and preferences in order to make sure the solution will actually work the way you expect it to.

Access to your house is critically important and there is nothing wrong with having a ramp, power door openers, stair glides, etc.  Just as access needs vary from person to person, so do personal preferences.  Sometimes access designs that aren’t well thought out might be noticeable or obtrusive.  If appearances are important to you, it is often possible to use universal design concepts to blend the access features in, to minimize their visual impact, or at the very least to make them removable when you no longer need them.   Interestingly, some health professionals and construction professionals are not well versed in this concept.  There are some people who still believe that they must follow American with Disability Act guidelines when providing residential access and do not address the individual needs of their customers.

A home feature is only a barrier if a person can’t use the feature safely. Residential access can be both customized and lovely.  If done well, it can have either a positive or a neutral impact on the value of a home.

Pets as Falling Risks

Watch on your mobile device >>

I spend a lot of time in people’s homes helping them identify and remove things that could cause them to fall.  One great risk I see is one that most of us wouldn’t part with if our life depended on it- and sometimes it does.

Pets, dogs and cats are an important part of many American families.  Often they are a senior’s or a single person’s only live in companion.   Unfortunately these wonderful companions can also present a significant hazard.

In 2006 the Center for Disease Control produced a report indicating that over 86,000 falls a year could be attributed to pets and pet items.  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5811a1.htm While injuries were more frequent among younger people, the highest fracture rates were among people 75-84 years and up.  Most of these fall injuries occurred in or around the home.   How unfortunate that the companions that contribute to the well being and mental health of people living at home are also such a large contributor to the physical risks within our homes.

The good news coming out of the study was that the likelihood of pet related falls can be reduced through raising awareness that pets and pet items are a fall risk, identifying activities which are higher risk, and decreasing risk by providing obedience training.   In Omaha, NE there are two groups that the Greater Omaha National Safety Council’s FIRST (Fall Intervention Reaching Seniors Together) task force is working with to decrease the number of falls related to pets.

"FIRST has collaborated with the Omaha SPCA to produce a brochure that can be distributed to increase awareness of the correlation between Pets and Falling.  The brochure identifies some solutions to share.  Call the council at (402) 896-0454 for a copy to share with someone you know is at risk and visit the web site, www.F1RST.com  for additional tools to reduce the risk of falling in the home.

Professor Joy D. Doll, OTD, OTR/L and some Occupational Therapy students from the Department of Occupational Therapy School of Pharmacy & Health Professions at Creighton University Medical Center are conducting a research project entitled Exploring the Perceived Impact of Pets as a Hazard in Older Adults Fall Prevention in partnership with F1RST task group.  They are seeking individuals 65 and older who own a pet or pets to complete a short  and private online survey about falls and pets.  All surveys are anonymous and  it is strictly confidential and secure.

If you would like to help by taking the survey or passing it on to a person who is over 65, email me and I will send you a link for the survey.   BevVan@HomeAccessSolutions.com 

So share this information and please pass on the life saving brochure and survey to seniors that you know.   Our homes should be safe places and that includes homes with pets!"

Image by: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I want to transfer anywhere- absolutely anywhere!

Watch on your mobile device >>

Imagine that you aren’t able to get up out of that chair that you are sitting in right now.   How long could you stand it?   Would you be happy to even get a little help after an hour or two, even if it was only enough to move you into one other spot?  What if you could move even more?

The thing that I like most about a ceiling or wall based motorized transfer system is the freedom it can provide to a person with a disability and their caregivers.   A reliable system can free a person from fear of being dropped or fear of injuring a caregiver and can provide the freedom to move from seat to seat as many times a day as they want or need to.   Even the most basic straight piece of track over a bed and the space beside it can be life changing for a person who could not move from bed or wheelchair without it.

That said, imagine the freedom if a person could move anywhere they want to within a room.  A traverse Track System accomplishes that.   I used to think that the traverse system was really only useful for group settings like a therapy gym where one set of tracks would allow people to transfer safely and quickly onto equipment anywhere in the room.   Then I had the opportunity to install two units within the past few years for individuals who understood the potential the system had for their homes.

One situation was a young adult living who had one installed in his bedroom suite.  His transfer areas were his bed, his wheelchair, his desk chair, and two locations within his bathroom.  He and his family knew this was the most effective way to help him move anywhere he wanted to within his suite with no physical effort for his parents.   The second was for a person who had been living with a spinal cord injury for over 20 years.  He’d had to stay in hospital and rehab living situation for a long time following repair of a skin problem and knew he didn’t want to have any potential for rubbing that area.  He wanted a system that wouldn’t cause any muscular strain for his wife.  When he learned about the traverse track system, he knew he’d found his answer.

The traverse track system consists of two fixed ceiling or wall mounted parallel rails and one traverse rail that moves back and forth of the parallel rails.  The manual version shown in our video can be moved almost effortlessly by a caregiver.   SureHands Lift and Care Systems as usual has many options to allow us to match a person’s abilities and environment.  There is an electric version that can be operated independently by a person sitting in the body support or sling.  We can also connect a traverse rail to another rail and a person can move outside of the room.   While a traverse track system may not be able to move a person anywhere in the physical environment, such as down their outside ramp, all over the yard, or up and down the stairs, it can come very close to moving a person anywhere inside they want to go within their home.

If you’d like to learn more about the possibility of transferring anywhere, give us a call or visit the SureHands Lift and Care Systems web site www.surehands.com.  Imagine the freedom!