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Reducing the Dangers of the Staircase

By: James Jalonta

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There are a number of conditions that can make using the stairs much more difficult and a great deal more dangerous. Often, these conditions become more common with age, making seniors and the elderly at a much greater risk of falling and potentially seriously injuring themselves on the stairs. Preventing these accidents consequently becomes imperative, so many homeowners decide to install a stair lift on their home.
Stair lifts have been used for over a hundred years, but it has only been recently that low cost easy to install options have become available. The stair lift is a lifting aid that is used to carry a person up or down a staircase. In most instances a track and chair lifting system is used. The track will be first attached to the steps, with the chair moving along the tracks, safely holding a single occupant.
Unlike other types of lifting aids, like residential elevators, the stair lift does not require extensive home modification in most cases. Often, at least in regards to a straight staircase, a stair lift can be installed in only a few hours, using everyday tools, like an electric drill. A curved staircase, though, requires a more complicated, and therefore considerably more expensive, type of stair lift.
There are several factors that make a curved stair lift much more expensive, but the cost depends on the way the staircase is built. For example, many curved staircases have a ninety degree bend in them, with one or more bends. These are in essence simply two or more straight staircases, which have been placed together.
In the case of this type of curved staircase, which is essentially several straight staircases placed together, there are two stair lift options that can be used. The first involves a specially built stair lift that is specifically designed to move around a ninety degree bend. The other is to install two straight staircases, which is less expensive, but will require that the user switch stair lifts half way up.
For those with a true curved staircase, installing a stair lift will be much more costly and time consuming. This is as a result of the fact that there is no set building standard when it comes to the way curved staircases are built. So, the curved stair lift will need to be custom built to fit the exact bend of the staircase. This is an incredibly expensive process when you compare it to other types of stair lifts and can take months to be built and installed.
In the home, a staircase can be a valuable tool. However, for seniors, the elderly, and the mobility challenged, the stairs are much more difficult to use and can be very unsafe. In the case of a straight staircase, a stair lift can provide for a cost effective means of decreasing these risks and increasing the overall accessibility of the home.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

In an effort to help with the task of preventing senior falls, many people use stair lifts.

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