[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
While working in rehab,
I often encountered situations where clients could afford a bench or it
wouldn't fit their bathroom.
I generally cautioned people to not perform the type of tub transfer you
mention because I didn't feel it was safe. My experience is the the
width of the tub rim makes it impossible to get the edge of the chair
close enough and there is a high risk that the chair will tip.
Ron- with the lumex or metal leg type shower seat, I have encountered both
problems. But the rubbermaid seat is wide, and the legs are at the very
corners of the seat (not set in) so the seat definitely does not tip. As to
being too far from the tub rim, I know I sound like a rubbermaid commercial,
but these seats are larger and seem to get close enough to the rim, I always
practice the transfers with my patients and so far it seems to work fine.
What I usually do is practice the first day just as a dry (literally) run,
and we practice getting in and out of the tub ( on the seat) and if the
transfer seems manageable dry, then on my next visit, I assist them with a
shower. My training after that is to review and remind about the transfer
technique, and then the handheld shower takes some gettin used to for lots of
elderly people. A lot of my clients in their 70s to 90s seem to have favored
tub baths before they became disabled, so the showering off is something to
get used to. (Myself, and I think most people in my age range prefer showers
anyway. I have hand-held shower attachments on both my showers at home to
help with rinsing my kids hair when they are too short for the shower to
spray on them right, and washing dogs, and cleaning the tub - my daugter
Sarah recently said to me, "I hate in hotels when they have weird showers
without a sprayer" so she thinks sprayers are the norm.)
But back to my clients, they have to learn the steps of positioning the
diverter valve toward the handheld shower ( especially if anyone else in the
house uses the regular shower, and turning the water on adn adjusting it,
then pulling up the thing on the faucet that makes the water go to the
shower, then using the pause button on the sprayer so they can set it down,
and reversing the process to get the water all the way off. So I usually use
the rest of my visits to work on those things and also dressing. -- Jody
