One of our customers located a possible solution to help his mother get into and out of the bathtub and sent me a link. He had been considering tearing out his tub and replacing it with a roll-in, no-threshold shower until he spotted this possible alternative. The Pro Bath Chair Lift was a novel idea and I wanted to see one in action so I called the company. It’s located nearby(Entiat, WA) and is run by the chair’s inventor, Roger Gardner. He was headed to Portland the following week so I asked for a demonstration and Roger offered to stop by.
It took about 45 minutes to set up the rig for the test – it would have taken a little longer for a secure installation mounting into the floor but we were able to see it work without putting holes in the floor. It starts out resting on the side of the tub just like you see in the middle photo – this is the great part – it’s so easy to get in – no stepping over the side of the tub. No dodgy balancing inside of the tub. The transfer from walker or chair is accomplished outside of the tub. Swing the safety bar down and you’re ready to go.
It’s a pretty smooth ride. Using a push-button handheld control the seat lifts you up until your legs clear the tub and then turns and slowly lowers you down into the tub. You can stop it at about the point where I am(in the right photo) which is equivalent to where you would be in a shower seat or go all the way down to rest the seat on the bottom of the tub for an actual bath.
There is a little bit of a learning curve on both the chair operation(when and where to switch from up to down) and finagling with how a caregiver works around the apparatus to help with the washing although the option of a perineal chair helps a lot. I also suppose you’ll have to think about something tricky to do with a shower curtain, or maybe two, to make this work as a shower since the arm of the chair will cut across the plane where the curtain will be.
It’s relatively inexpensive($3995.-)compared to the cost of a new shower. It can swing completely out of the way for other household users and is portable to other locations. I’ve seen on the website where it can be configured as a sling but you’ll need to ask the Safe Bathtub people about that.
Did my customer buy it? The mom adventurously agreed right away to try out the chair(as did her son, a 250lb test) and they’re thinking about it.
Safe Bathtubs Inc
website: http://www.safebathtub.com
800-729-6216