If you or a loved one requires long-term care or has mobility issues requiring a geri or bariatric wheelchair, you already know the importance of this type of medical equipment. If you work in a long-term care facility, you also are familiar with the various types of chairs commonly found there. Comfort for the patient is the most important, followed closely by the ease of use for the care giver. When handling many patients a day, it’s easy to see why some chairs are preferred.
When mobility becomes difficult and long-term sitting and care is required, it’s increasingly important to consider the type of chair that patients will be spending much of their waking hours occupying. Comfortable wheelchairs for the elderly and persons needing long-term care is a growing market as our nation’s population lis living longer and aging. By 2060 there will be 98 million older persons, which is more than double what it was in 2013.
Typical hospital wheelchairs are not conducive to many hours of sitting and can not be adjusted. Even most geri chairs only have a few seating positions. But there is a growing market for even more advanced chairs that offer smooth transitioning and a wide range of positions that allow patients to more comfortably eat, recline, interact with others at tables and be easily moved from chair to bed or other facilities. These chairs can be found in all types of care settings from nursing homes to rehab centers to memory support centers and provide long term sitting comfort.
Sitting for long periods of time puts pressure on particular parts of the body and chairs that can be adjusted help to ease pressure and the web foundation redistributes weight and provides for better air flow. With 2 million new wheel chair users a year, it’s easy to see how the wheelchair industry is growing, making comfortable wheelchairs for the elderly an even bigger market.
Other advantages of tilt in space wheelchairs is that they can decrease falls (for ambulatory users) and improve breathing by keeping the patient from slumping and sliding without the use of restraints. Tilt in space is clearly an improvement over recline only chairs.
So whether you are in need of a chair for yourself or a loved one, or you are the care giver for someone requiring such a chair, look for high quality seating that provides maximum comfort. Considering there are 3.3 million persons presently using chairs, and the number is likely to grow in the coming years as the population continues to age, the need for high quality, comfortable wheelchairs for the elderly has never been greater. In fact, the manual wheelchair industry is expected to grow to $2.9 billion by 2018 and the power wheelchair industry may reach nearly $4 billion by that same year. You or your loved one deserves the best quality of life, and a comfortable and fully adjustable chair can make that a reality.