Stair Glide

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Pat4t

New member
Joined
Nov 16, 2011
Messages
9
Reason
PALS
Diagnosis
11/2011
Country
CA
State
ON
City
Ottawa
I live in a two story home and am starting to have difficulty with stairs. I have been advised that I should have a stair glide installed in my home. They are very costly. Others caution me that I may only be able to use it for a short time. Can anyone tell me what there experience with stair guides has been and perhaps give me some advice
 
Check with ALS Ont. They might have one laying around.

AL.
 
A stair glide is not a good solution for ALS. It will help you in the short term but then in a year or so you won't be able to use it when you can't transfer or your trunk strength is poor. At this point you will need to find solution #2. The cost of the stair lift will have been wasted.

I encourage you to find solution #2 now and implement that. It's better to either (a) move, (b) remodel the house so you don't need to use the upstairs, (c) install a lift, or (d) install an incline wheelchair lift.

-Tom
 
We are faced with this now. My husband also has difficulty with steps. I feel in our situation, we will go ahead and get the stair glide. With this monster of a disease, one never knows how long they will be as they are or progress. Yes, it is true he may use it only a short time, and of course we hope he will use it for a good while. So, with that hope we are getting one. In the meantime we are looking into a room addition which takes a long time and now in PA construction can't begin until Spring.

My husband is on the Dex trial. Who knows if he has the placebo? If he has the real deal he has the hope of "lasting longer". At first his doctor told him he was progressing slowly, then he told him he was average. Does anyone really know?

God Bless in your decision. None of this is easy! :(
 
ALS Society of Ontario has straight stair glides you can lease.
 
Thanks for the advice. Looks like the stair glide is an expensive short term solution.
Unfortunately we have a u shaped staircase. Lifts, etc don't work. Chair elevators are very expensive. We don't want to move.
We may simply make our second floor where I reside.
Pat4t
 
Curved stair lifts can run $12,000 to $15,000 or more.

It is a very temporary solution.

We are faced with the same problem - but it makes more sense to put that money towards renovating the ground floor.
 
My Dad wanted a stair lift but because of his progression his Dr's wouldn't allow it. He didn't have enough strength in his arms (at that time) to help lower himself into the seat. He could still fall down the stairs because of that so for him it would have been a waste of money because he is progressing so fast. Now his arm strength is for the most part gone & it's only been a couple of months.

Thankful for the VA they are in the process of having a lift installed (like an elevator) outside the home so he wil have easier in/out of the house. He is so anxious to get outside.....on his own (sort of speak :-D )

I think depending on the progression it is a short term solution unfortunately
 
I'm in the same boat regarding the stair lift... I have 16 steps, including 2 landings and curved stairs... not to mention I have 10' ceilings so there are more steps to begin with. And since my house is on the market, I didn't want to pay to install the stairlifts even if I could buy them reasonably cheap.

I moved my bedroom downstairs into the dining room/music room just after Thanksgiving. The main problem is that I still have to go up those stairs to take a shower a couple of times a week. Otherwise, I use the downstairs (which ironically have 3 steps down to them) bathroom for in between the showers.

KissJ, one way you may be able to figure out if your hubby is on the placebo or Dex is to check his blood tests (get them from the study site) for decreased WBC (white blood count). Evidently that is a side effect that some people in phase 2 had to come off of the medicine because they dropped too far. So we balance wanting to know, and then knowing too much... :(
 
I thought Medicare paid for stair lifts am I wrong my doctor ask if I needed one. We had a bedroom down stairs so we just moved that was easier.
 
I didn't know about the wheelchair lifts that go up the stairs, so in my next house I'm going to look into those as well. Still too much work, though I do miss seeing my 2nd and 3rd floors!
 
Medicare will not pay for stair lifts or elevators. If you are a veteran you can get some funds from the VA for remodeling your home but I don't know how much.

Helen: I have a similar situation as yours. We have a bathroom down 4 steps. So we had a master bedroom suite built around it, and had an inexpensive platform lift installed (Mac Lift Gate model PL-50).

-Tom
 
Hi Tom, just saw your post, and I'll check out that lift... funny thing is, a friend just mentioned that I should take the steps out and put in a lift.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas!
Helen
 
We put in the chair lift and it works for now. The exterior lift we need is going to run about $14k. Not good. Will check out the Mac lift gate...not sure what else to do when chair lift is no longer an option.
 
I purchased a new stair glide and was only able to use it for about 6 or 7 months. In hind sight I wish I had not spent the money on it. But everyone has a different experience with their progression so it is hard to say what you should do. By the time i ordered the stair glide my husband was lifting each foot up and placing it on each step. I quit using the stair glide when i went into the power wheelchair as getting onto the seat of the stairglide was becoming too difficult and there would not be a power chair waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me.
 
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