Stroke Survivor Blog

Many preparations have been made around the house to make it handicap accessible for Steve. A ramp was built by a friend so I can roll the wheelchair through the front door, which is wider than the other entry doors.

The next big area to make ready was the stairway, so our railing was modified with another handrail that Steve can easily grip. It was stained to match the color of the wood and attached to the original railing, so the stairway doesn’t look like it was specially designed to be handicap accessible. It can always be removed at a later date if we don’t need it any longer.

Another area that needed modification was the bathroom Steve would be using. A screw-in grab bar was installed next to the toilet. I bought one at Home Depot that could be cut to size to fit the area needed. We are very fortunate to have an extra bathroom where the tub had the right-side orientation he needed for the placement of handrails and shower bench.

I removed the shower doors and added a shower curtain, a hand-held shower sprayer, and a bathtub safety mat. Then I found some suction cup grab bars online that work wonderfully on the fiberglass surface of the shower unit. There is no wood backing behind the fiberglass walls, so conventional screw-in grab bars could not be used. When I did a search for the grab bars, I found a transfer bench that I needed for the shower, and it was about $80 less than the home medical supply store was selling it for. All of these items made the bathroom handicap accessible, and they were relatively inexpensive if you take the time to shop for the best prices.

Steve has learned to shower himself once he’s seated on the shower bench. Really helpful was a long-handled Bath Body Brush. With it he can scrub his back and reach his feet without having to bend over too far. Once Steve is washed up, I help dry him off. Then he stands up for a few seconds while I slip a folded dry towel under him, and he sits back down. This towel helps him pivot on the shower bench while I lift his left leg over the side of the tub onto the floor. It’s safer this way because he doesn’t have to stand up and step out of the tub. While he’s still seated on the shower bench, I help him get dressed.

We have a split bathroom where the tub and toilet are in one room and the sink is in another. This made it easy to add a chair in front of the sink for Steve to sit on to brush his teeth and wash up. I used an ordinary desk chair on casters, so it can be moved out of the way. By modifying the bathroom with this equipment, it became handicap accessible for him to use.

The upstairs master bedroom also needed some modifications. Steve needed some type of bedrail to help him get out of bed. What I found was something called a “bed cane” that is attached to a flat board that is anchored between the box spring and mattress and secured with a strap on the bed frame. This works wonderfully and it is very solid.  I paid $160 for it at a home medical supply store, but I found a Bed Cane Rail later online for $67. It is completely adjustable and works on either side of the bed. It has a weight capacity of 250 lbs. and it looks very nice. This simple piece of equipment is the most important handicap accessible item in the bedroom, and it has been a life saver for him. Steve would have a very difficult time getting out of bed without it. I talked to another stroke survivor’s wife, and she said her husband has fallen several times getting out of bed without a bed cane.

Sitting on his nightstand within reach are a hand-held urinal and box of tissues.  A waste basket is nearby on the floor. There is an electrical outlet close by, so I plugged in a nightlight so he’d have enough light to see when it’s necessary to get up during the night to use the urinal. This saved him from having to wake me up to help him. He pulls himself up to a sitting position with the bed cane, then stands up and leans back against the bed cane to balance as he uses the urinal. When finished, he places it on the nightstand to be emptied later.

It’s hard to know all the modifications that will be necessary until you’re actually in the house and using things on a day-to-day basis, but some things are obvious. Several rugs needed to be removed so they wouldn’t pose a tripping hazard, and a coffee table had to be moved out of the way.

For the most part, these changes were fairly easy to make the house handicap accessible without major renovations; and with the help of many friends and relatives we paid only for the materials, and they supplied the labor free of charge.