If you’ve noticed your loved senior having trouble navigating or climbing the stairs in their home, think about giving them a special gift this Valentine’s Day—a versatile stairlift to help them safely navigate to all floors of their home.

Because a stairlift is something they will rely on each and every day, and because you care about how people treat the senior you love, it’s important to choose a stairlift company you can honestly trust. You want to be sure that you are getting a high-quality product, reliable and friendly installation, and excellent customer service.

The fact is, Stannah Stairlifts are designed with excellent craftsmanship and we have more types of stairlifts than other providers. For example, our stairlifts are designed with a slim rail so that everyone can access the stairs, even narrow ones, with great ease.

Growing numbers of seniors are looking for active living programs that recognize their current health risks while providing an appropriate level of physical activity to challenge and work their bodies. Exercise serves as preventative care that helps reduce the common risk factors for heart disease, including elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels. It also works to reduce the risk of diabetes because the human body doesn’t have to produce as much insulin when the body is active. As a result, regular exercise reduces the body’s need to produce insulin just when the body’s ability to produce insulin may be compromised due to aging.

Regular exercise also reduces the risk of depression, and many seniors enjoy group fitness activities that are also social, such as heart-healthy walks with friends, local aquatic programs, tai chi, dancing, and yoga. All of these activities are good for the brain and help inspire feelings of well-being, quickly working to banish feelings of depression.

Keeping your senior active and involved in the community may sometimes involve a little home renovation. When seniors can get safely around their home, they have access to all the benefits of active living. Call our team of experts for an in-home demonstration of how a stair lift can help keep your seniors active, healthy and happy.

Family members may struggle as they watch a beloved parent, aunt, uncle or other family member who is affected by aging and want to keep them as safe as possible, but these needs may be in conflict with what the senior wants. If you notice that the senior you care about is struggling to move freely at home, to access upper and lower floors they used to inhabit often, then it’s time to consider giving them back the freedom of movement within their home.

A stair lift can be installed inside or outside the home and can give the senior an easy way to safely get to the other floors. It means that the senior can sleep in their own bedroom, even if that room is upstairs. It means they can do their own laundry, even if the washer and dryer are in the basement.

Contact our advisers to request a free brochure or to get a free, no-obligation quote. Installing a stair lift can ease your fears about them falling, and give seniors access to their entire home again. It can help keep them living independently, which is often their foremost desire.

When a relatively healthy senior who is otherwise capable of taking care of himself / herself suddenly has trouble with stairs, installing a chair lift can ensure safety and they can continue to live in the home.  If you suspect, but aren’t absolutely certain, that the senior in your life is struggling with climbing or navigating the stairs in their home, look for the signs. She or he may be unwilling to talk with you about it for fear of being encouraged to abandon their home for an unfamiliar living facility.

As they say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. If you are concerned and want to discuss the topic of installing a stair lift with your senior, send us an email. We’ll mail a free DVD that will explain how the stairway lift works. Our video will show indoor and outdoor examples of the chair lift and show you and your senior how easy it is to operate.

It’s important to understand that your children may not be ready for this talk. They may choose to ignore the signs and be unprepared for the responsibility. Nevertheless, if you feel it’s time, then it’s time. Get in touch with your children and set aside a time when you can all chat together.

Next, prepare a list of notes ahead of time, and start with something small they can accomplish easily like working on a list of your medications and dosages and typing up the name of your doctor (or doctors). This way, if a medical emergency happens, they will be prepared to help the medical team as quickly as possible.

If you are finding it difficult to navigate to different floors of your home, talk with your children about the options available to you, including installing a stairlift. They can call us today for a free in-home estimate and be there to discuss the options, ask questions, and understand how it will work, so you have the support you need when the lift is installed.

Just as you guided your children and mentored them into adulthood and relative independence, as a senior, you may have to take them in hand and speak to them about your needs as you age.

The blues, or mild depression, is something nearly everyone fights at one time or another. Of course, mild depression in older people can often be missed, even by devoted caregivers. For seniors who are struggling with mobility issues or health problems, the struggle to move about the house can be a trigger for depression.

What works to cure the blues for one person may not work for another, but the following are some recommended tips for coping with senior blues:

1. Take care of yourself: get some exercise every day, eat the right foods, and get a little sunshine.
2. Spend a little time in your day doing the things you love. Love gardening? Even if it’s winter-time, you can start a small indoor garden and tend to it.
3. Call a good friend. Friends are important and they can often pull us out of a funk quicker than anything else will!
4. Remember your caregivers—especially around the holidays because doing nice things for others is often a great boost to how we feel.
5. Get busy and try something new. Cook a nice meal, try a new class, shake up the routine!

It’s important to understand that there is no single cause for the blues. Everyone is different, and for some a single event can bring on the mood change. For some people, different times of the year have different meaning and can shift their mood south. Being able to get around easily in your home with the help of a stair lift can go a long way to keep your spirits “uplifted”!

Besides the very obvious benefit of allowing the senior to stay in their home and enjoy the entire house, see our top 5 list of benefits of installing a stair lift:

It gives you access to the entire house without the footprint overhead of an elevator.

1. It’s easy to learn to use, and it works if you’re right- or left-handed.
2. It’s quiet and reliable, so you won’t disturb others and you can count on it for years to come.
3. It can be installed on curved or straight, tall or short staircases.
4. In the event of a power outage, a built-in battery system ensures the senior is never stuck in the stair lift.

First, let’s take a look at the symptoms of heart disease. They include:

• feeling faint, dizzy, or light-headed
• having a hard time catching your breath
• feeling extremely full—as if you overate
• pain or uncomfortable pressure in the chest
• unusual pain or pressure in the shoulders, back, and neck
• irregular heart flutters

If a senior you know is experiencing symptoms and is diagnosed with heart disease, consider installing a stair lift to ease the concerns about exerting themselves. A stair lift will ensure they have access to the entire house without the worry that they could feel faint or fall. Send us an email to receive a free DVD that demonstrates how our stair lifts work (inside or outside the home).

The following are 7 crucial steps to heart disease prevention:

1. Get some exercise every day of the week.
2. Stop smoking.
3. Eat a heart-healthy diet of whole grains, plenty of fruits and vegetables, reduced fatty meats.
4. Get a checkup and watch your cholesterol, fasting sugars, and blood pressure.
5. Reduce your alcohol intake. Experts now recommend 1-3 drinks per week.
6. Minimize your stress (see #1 for a little help with that).
7. Keep your weight under control.

A stair lift helps a senior access other floors of a home by reducing the risk of injury for both, the senior and their caregivers. It works as a mechanical chair that is mounted on a rail attached to the stairs. You sit in the chair either at the top or bottom of the stairs and operate the controls to travel up or down.

It’s important to note that the chair is positioned at a one- or two-inch drop—much less than a traditional recliner, so it’s easy on the knees and convenient to get seated. And don’t worry, it does not tilt on its track (this isn’t a roller coaster!), but stays perpendicular with the floor even if the stairs it is traveling on are curved.

If you know a senior with a disability, weakness, arthritis, balance issues, joint conditions, hip or knee problems, he or she may benefit from having a stair lift installed in their home. Give us a call today for a free in-home estimate.

A member of the Stannah design team tests the arthritis suit

Using the suit while taking a ride on a Stannah stairlift

Stannah Stairlifts and Loughborough University’s Design School reveal suit to raise awareness on World Arthritis Day

In an effort to better understand the challenges our customers face we’re working with a British university to simulate the effects of arthritis on the human body.

Stannah Stairlifts purchased the state-of-the-art osteo-arthritis suit from researchers at Loughborough University so that our designers can better understand what it is like to suffer from the condition, helping them to reach out and empathize with prospective customers around the world.

The Osteoarthritis Suit simulates osteo-arthritis in the knee, hip and hands and comes with a sock that mimics a bunion.

The suit has already given us valuable insights into how we might improve product design and will be used in training and induction sessions to help staff throughout the business understand more about the challenges a large number of Stannah customers face.

Sharon Cook, Manager of the Loughborough SKInS (Sensory and Kinaesthetic Interactive Simulations) Programme which researches and develops Wearable Simulations of given health conditions said: “The aim of the Loughbrough SKInS: Wearable Simulations is to enable those without a health condition, such as osteoarthritis, to obtain some insight into how it feels and what its impacts to daily living might be.  In this way, empathy with sufferers is generated among designers, sales teams and staff trainers, thereby guiding improvements to future product and service design.

Nick Stannah, Product Marketing Director at Stannah Stairlifts, added: “The arthritis suit has helped people at Stannah better empathize with our customers who suffer from arthritis. It is through innovative techniques like this that we can ensure our products and staff continue to help our customers retain their independence in and outside of the home. Indeed, the Osteoarthritis Suit is already having a very positive impact on how Stannah designs its products and empathizes with the needs of its customers”