500 Reasons you MUST put a lift in... (in my not so humble opinion)
1. Lifting a human who is even half your size is hard.
2. The human you are lifting could easily get hurt - especially if she is wet and slippery.
3. You or whoever is in charge of lifting could get hurt.
4. All humans need to bathe - any using a lift might give them a little dignity.
5. There are lots of options for slings and harnesses - get all the ones you need.
OK, so I may not actually have 500 reasons, but If I had enough time, I feel confident that I would. Here's the deal - the #1 place people fall is in the bathroom. If we could take that danger out of the equation for our daughter, it was worth it. She has enough to deal with already - and so do we!
Installing a lift is a big decision. It is expensive, and it requires planning - two of my least favorite things. We used Homelift - the local elevator company to install our lift, but before you call them take a minute to think through the process you need the lift to accomplish. I would recommend an "outsider" (in our case my brother-in-law), asking questions of the primary caregivers.
We talked through the fact that Katherine would wake up each morning in her bed, need to travel to the toilet, then to the bath or shower, then to a dressing station. Our decision was that once she had her shoes on, she could assist with the transfer to her wheelchair. We also recognized that there would be multiple trips to the toilet throughout the day - so she needed to be able to get there easily without going through the whole process.
At Homelift's recommendation, we went with a Liko system. Ours is not powered - so Katherine cannot use it on her own. We help her get into her sling, then slide her along the rail. I believe that there is also an option that can power a person along the rail, but as Katherine is not independent enough to manage her dressing, toileting and bathing on her own - that was unnecessary for us.
We learned during the process, that these "turntables" add a lot of extra expense - we do have one, but we limited ourselves to that one, and accomplished the rest of our goals with curved rails.
We have a plastic coated universal sling that we use for bathing - although it is open so that you can use it to go to the toilet as well. I also asked for a "hygiene sling" which is essentially just a wide belt that goes under the arms. With it Katherine can stand, we can pull her pants up and down and she can go potty. In the evening, she can go potty, then walk to her bed with this sling on.
A nice touch that we added late in our remodel, was a cabinet to house the charging station for the lift.
