Is a shower chair necessary for someone who is wheelchair bound?

Your best bet is have a bath aide for her. They do a fine job bathing the patient in bed.

That's a good question, I wonder how sturdy would a regular plastic shower chair would be for someone who would need to be transferred to that chair.

That is great that the management at your Mom's apartment is willing to remodel the bathroom. Is that something your Mom would need to pay to have done?

Maybe sponge baths would work just as fine since she is already use to those type of baths. As for washing one's hair, one can purchase dry shampoo or dry shampoo caps.

My Aunt is wheelchair bound for the most part and not steady or safe on a bench in the shower. The aides where she lives took her wheelchair into the shower and when I looked into that, unless there are caps on the posts that hold the front wheel bearings, or coatings on the arm inserts into the chair at the front of the arm, then water gets in and causes damage to the bearing and rust to the arm post. It takes time for this to occur, but it does happen. Bed baths work well, and shower chairs are expensive, but I ended up buying one since I could get one that was also a commode (removable seat inset) and that has made showering comfy and safer for my Aunt. Absent the resources to buy a shower chair, I would tape plastic bags over the wheelchair posts and make sure the arm posts were dried out completely afterward. The round tube the arm post goes into is sometimes open all the way the through and sometimes it has a floor. Just make sure it's dry and the regular wheelchair should work. I did learn if your wheelchair has a pocket in the back, it will fill with water. It is heartwarming to hear your landlord cares enough to remodel the shower. Wheel in showers are so much easier for everyone.

My mom is wheelchair bound. We have a shower chair the swivels and slides. So you move her from wheelchair to the seat, swivel it, then slide it into the shower on the track. I bought ours on Amazon. It works great!. My 2 year old grandson calls it the choo choo chair!
When the shower isn't a good option, we do a sponge bath with her sitting on the bedside commode. Take the bucket off and you have access to all important parts ;-)