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Install Walk-In Showers & Grab Bars for the Senior at Home
Handyman services for senior safety not only prevent injuries, they can save lives. Unexpected falls anytime, anywhere, are a safety hazard to anyone. For seniors, however, they can be especially dangerous. In addition to a lengthy, painful recuperation, the immobility following a slip/fall injury may be the triggering event in a downward spiral of declining health for a previously independent, active senior. In any home, the bathroom presents hazards: slick, often damp surfaces and hard floors and fixtures make it a fall-zone that requires special accommodations, particularly for the older and less-agile.
Here are two ways handyman services for senior safety can help make your bathroom a safer environment for you or a senior living with you.
Grab Bars
Grab bars provide extra safety and security for those precarious maneuvers that present the most danger: specifically, stepping in or out of a tub or shower enclosure. The combination of wet feet, poor traction and the need to step over an elevated tub or shower rim presents a safety challenge.
Grab bars are securely mounted to internal wall studs or reinforced attachment points on the tub or enclosure. Typically an 18-inch to 24-inch bar is mounted vertically at the edge of the enclosure for support while stepping in or out. Another bar of similar length is installed at an angle on the back wall of the tub for security lowering or hoisting one’s self from the tub or stability leaning over. One more bar should be installed horizontally below the shower head, about three feet above the tub bottom, for balance standing upright in the shower spray.
Walk-In Shower
This bathroom modification directly replaces your conventional tub/shower enclosure with a walk-in design that eliminates the dangers of climbing in and out of a tub or stepping over high shower enclosure thresholds. Installed by a professional handyman with carpentry and plumbing skills, a walk-in shower incorporates a wide entrance opening, options for comfortable seating while bathing, as well as grab bars for standing stability.
Contact Apollo Home Heating, Cooling and Plumbing for more information about handyman services for senior safety in your home.
