For someone who is limited in their mobility, dealing with #steps and #stairs are a constant #barrier to living any semblance of a “normal” life, whether child or adult. Or are they?

They can cause our home to be re-arranged to our loss of dignity and independence- and inconvenience for the rest of the family- by having a bed in the living room. 

They can put the family’s safety at risk, where one person is carrying another (whether child or adult) up and down stairs.

The ‘standard’ solutions- a stairlift or through-floor lift- take at best months to implement and install, involve structural alteration and disruption to our home, impact on our living space and can impede the rest of the family’s safe ease of access around and use of the home. They only address the problem within that specific property, on those two floors.

Is there another way?

Did you even know there is another way?

A way that can be achieved within days, with no physical re-arranging of the home, structural alterations?

A way that has no adverse impact, loss of dignity nor safety of anyone living in the home?

Further, its use extends beyond the home’s interior: it can odeal with steps into the garden, into the street- into the wider community.

I doubt you did! And often the healthcare professionals supporting your care package do not always realise or appreciate the alternative: they have so much to do, and there are so many different mobility and living aids, how can they know the minutae of each and very option?

the stairclimber solution: fast, no installation

The “other way” is a stairclimber, a battery-powered kinematic stepping machine that can be operated by even the most petite carer moving a morbidly obese person.

Either with an integrated seat or attached to a wheelchair, the stairclimber smoothly and safely powers up and down 300 risers from a single charge. It can accommodate almost any staircase design: indeed, one family has taken its stairclimber to three different homes over the past 10 years, without an issue. As an aside, they were loaned it by their local Council for a week to see if it worked: it did the job so well dad Paul refused to hand it back, as it also widens the options available to the family to holiday as a unit without specialist accommodation.

The stairclimber moves at a constant, smooth, consistent speed, dictated by the operator. The height of the handle can be adjusted to the most comfortable height for the operator: to cite an example, one family whose son has complex disabilities all operate the stairclimber, from a 5ft 11ins (1.5m) carer to 6ft 3ins (2m) father.

the safe, discreet answer

A high centre of gravity means only the slightest tilt is required by the operator to enable the stairclimber to begin its ascent or descent. The machine automatically pauses by smooth braking on the top of edge riser to allow the operator to move safely with the machine. If needed, it is easy to pause or stop the process.

A range of accessories including harnessing and postural supports mean each stairclimber can be easily set to the precise safety and stability needs of each passenger, and quickly and easily adjusted as requirements change over time, from infanthood to adulthood, or as the user’s mobility alters. It will accommodate a passenger up to 21 stone (135kg)

The Class 1 medical device is stand-alone machine, it can be folded away when not in use. It does not require any permanent fixing to the stairs, nor structural alteration to the property. Therefore, as a solution it can be supplied within days, rather than the weeks or months of alternatives. All that is needed above and beyond the equipment is appropriate training, usually delivered as the stairclimber is set up for the individual user.

It is not just the physical barrier of stairs that a stairclimber addresses. 

Because it has such a small physical impact on the home in general, it improves everyone within the family’s health & wellbeing. It takes away the worry of safely transferring between levels. It retains dignity. It avoids the loss of privacy inevitable if your bed ends up being moved downstairs, of having to use a commode because you can’t get upstairs to the WC.

Assuming there is someone appropriate at home to operate it, it can avoid the delay in waiting for a care package to be put in place, enabling daily family life to be resumed more quickly, at home.

To find out more, watch videos of the stairclimber in action, and book your free, no obligation assessment, click the link:https://www.aatgb.com/s-max/