We are a Family that don't have disposable income. She need help with a stair lift to help her get upstairs. Can you help? Is there a place that donates this type of machinery? I need help please. She lives in Danville CA.
Check to see if her insurance will pay with a prescription from the doctor. Otherwise, get a price for what it would cost, and set up a "gofundme" page. The world is truly filled with very kind and generous people, despite all the ugliness we see on the news channels.
Or, you could do what we generally never think of: move her to the living room and set her room up as the TV room. Then you can watch TV in t he evening when she is sleeping. It won't cost anything (except possibly for moving the cable....)
When we get that far, I will have to do this in our house which has LOTS of stairs. The TV is already down stairs in a small office. But the idea of having my husband in the living room is one that I accepted long ago. Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, right?
All good ideas. But do check and see that your stairs are wide enough to receive a stairlift and still be considered "safe" for others. Those lifts are heavy and take more room than you'd be led to believe.
In the meantime, how about making a special room for mom downstairs? I know my mother cannot make the stairs at my brother's place, and he has plenty of room to install them--he just wanted his family to have "mom-free space" and if she could get up the stairs, she'd be in their bedrooms, family room, basically, in their lives 24/7. Now she has the whole main floor to utilize along with her little apartment.
She's lived with brother for 17 years and it's wearing on him. He has all 5 og kids still at home, they need a place for friends to come over and not have Grandma sitting there, nosing around.
Don't promise her you can do this until you are certain that A: you can, and B: you really want to.
First place to start calling is your local Agency on Aging. www.agingcare.com/local/Area-Agency-on-Aging to see if there is a group that would help with some of the cost.
I know that in the future we will have to change our bedroom to the living room, we have a small house and our bedroom is on the ground floor. The previous owners added two small bedrooms in the attic and the stairs would never be able to adapt to a stair lift because of the placement/configuration of the stairs they built. Plus the rooms are even smaller. Our largest bedroom on the ground floor is only abt 10'x 10' and if needed we could never get a wheelchair to the bed. So we plan to switch the two rooms. It's not the best we could want yet it will allow us to be able to get around. When my grandmother got older she curtained off a part of her dining room and had a bed set there. She did not socialize much at that time and still had a living room for any guests, etc, Her older home had a second floor which she just could not manage anymore so it worked for her to be on the ground floor. I have known others who due to age or disability who have converted their living room into a bedroom area so I don't think it's uncommon. Of course it's easier to do this if your family isn't large and social, children especially take up more room. Depending on your family personal needs if you can do it may work and you can always switch back. So much depends on the access path through your house and making sure everyone has the privacy and space they need. I hope you can find a solution for the situation that works for everyone in your family.
Does your mom live with your family ? Can she have a bed on the first floor somewhere? Sometimes a church or charity online can help her,with chair lift.
There are several things you can do to remedy the problem.
1. Install a stair lift
2. Move her room downstairs, at least her bed
3. move her to a one floor house
I used to know someone many years ago who also couldn't take the stairs due to bad knees. Fortunately for her she had a sunroom porch on the main floor that she turned into a bedroom.
Another thing to consider is if the home happens to have steps leading into your entrance. Many homes have steps and are not handicap accessible. This is where building a ramp would come in handy
Regarding Medicare and chair stair lifts. "Does Medicare cover the cost of stair lifts? It is logical to begin here as a very common question. The short, uncomplicated answer is, for all practical purposes, Medicare does not pay for stair lifts."
"The one possible exception to this rule is Medicare might pay for a small portion of the cost if the stair lift has an elevating seat which helps the rider to sit down and get up from the chair safely. However, such a feature would only be available in a high-end stair chair which would cost considerably more than the amount Medicare would reimburse the purchaser. In other words, the amount of financial assistance would be less than the additional cost for a stair lift which has that feature."
"Medicare supplemental insurance policies also do not cover stair lifts. These policies are intended to help with co-payments and deductibles for goods and services covered by Medicare. Since, Medicare does not help, neither would a Supplemental or Medigap policy." [source, Paying For Senior Care].
strange that I was talking to a friend today and she was telling me that her mother's doctor put her on prednisone and that she was bed ridden when she started and was able to clean their entire house when she was put on prednisone. As with most steroids, they started her on a high doseage and reduced it down gradually over about 10 days to 2 weeks and she would maintain for a few weeks and need to go back on it again. I have not had any experience with this. It is simply analogous. I have success with occasional prednisone for injuries to arthritic joints. This is what started the conversation today with her. Good luck with your mom. For general inflammation, I use Botswala (medicinal frankincense) and Circummmin (the ingredient in tumeric that makes it yellow) You can just make a tumeric shake, but it tastes awful..
Or, you could do what we generally never think of: move her to the living room and set her room up as the TV room. Then you can watch TV in t he evening when she is sleeping. It won't cost anything (except possibly for moving the cable....)
When we get that far, I will have to do this in our house which has LOTS of stairs. The TV is already down stairs in a small office. But the idea of having my husband in the living room is one that I accepted long ago. Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, right?
In the meantime, how about making a special room for mom downstairs? I know my mother cannot make the stairs at my brother's place, and he has plenty of room to install them--he just wanted his family to have "mom-free space" and if she could get up the stairs, she'd be in their bedrooms, family room, basically, in their lives 24/7. Now she has the whole main floor to utilize along with her little apartment.
She's lived with brother for 17 years and it's wearing on him. He has all 5 og kids still at home, they need a place for friends to come over and not have Grandma sitting there, nosing around.
Don't promise her you can do this until you are certain that A: you can, and B: you really want to.
You need your private space, too.
1. Install a stair lift
2. Move her room downstairs, at least her bed
3. move her to a one floor house
I used to know someone many years ago who also couldn't take the stairs due to bad knees. Fortunately for her she had a sunroom porch on the main floor that she turned into a bedroom.
Another thing to consider is if the home happens to have steps leading into your entrance. Many homes have steps and are not handicap accessible. This is where building a ramp would come in handy
"The one possible exception to this rule is Medicare might pay for a small portion of the cost if the stair lift has an elevating seat which helps the rider to sit down and get up from the chair safely. However, such a feature would only be available in a high-end stair chair which would cost considerably more than the amount Medicare would reimburse the purchaser. In other words, the amount of financial assistance would be less than the additional cost for a stair lift which has that feature."
"Medicare supplemental insurance policies also do not cover stair lifts. These policies are intended to help with co-payments and deductibles for goods and services covered by Medicare. Since, Medicare does not help, neither would a Supplemental or Medigap policy." [source, Paying For Senior Care].
For general inflammation, I use Botswala (medicinal frankincense) and Circummmin (the ingredient in tumeric that makes it yellow) You can just make a tumeric shake, but it tastes awful..
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