The home you grew up in. Even as an adult, it can be your sanctuary, and your happy place. It’s where you return for family reunions on high days and holidays, at Christmas, or to celebrate special birthdays.
It’s a place you know and where you feel safe.
Also, it’s where your widowed Mum lives. She’s 91 years old, and despite type 1 diabetes, she’s in relatively good health and making the most of every day. A keen reader, addicted to crosswords, and sharp as a pin. A little frail, perhaps, but otherwise not too bad at all.
Until the day that she tripped and fell over at the top of the stairs, breaking the bones in her right shoulder and narrowly avoiding a life-threatening tumble down a steep staircase.
A True Story for Our Time
This really happened.
Although we’ve removed all identifying names and details, we’ve put together Elsie’s story as a genuine case study, and you may find it resonates deeply with you.
Are you a son or daughter whose Mum or Dad is determined to stay in their own home? Yet, its fixtures and fittings, including the staircase, no longer support their mobility needs? And, does this ever-present danger stalk your mind – especially at 3 o’clock in the morning?
If so, the following tale will speak to you. Don’t be concerned. Here, there’s been a happy ending; indeed an extremely positive outcome. But, as a specialist mobility company with over 23 years’ experience, sadly, we know that this isn’t always the case.
A Life-Changing Investment
So, before we proceed, may we offer you this one piece of advice?
If you’re concerned about your parents’ daily struggle with that beautiful yet deadly Victorian staircase, a stairlift or a home lift in place now could create a better, safer alternative narrative. With the widest choice of stairlifts in the whole of the South East – and did we mention our amazing domestic lifts – there is most certainly a stairlift that could transform your Mum’s life (or your Dad’s).
We stock them, we can design the perfect stairlift to suit every type of staircase, plus we’ll deliver and install everything hassle-free.
Acting before the fact, rather than after it could make all the difference.
Looking Back, Looking Forwards
Hindsight. It’s a marvellous thing, and we can all be wise with its counsel.
This is a tale of a life well lived, in a home well-loved, barged in on by the almost-inevitable: a late-age, at-home accident that, whilst clearly nobody’s fault, echoed around the family in ways that they now realise could have been prevented.
And which, with searing honesty, they now admit didn’t need to have happened.
Meet Richard.
The youngest of four now grown-up children, he leads a busy, fulfilled life with his wife about 20 miles away from Elsie, his Mum. Richard has a deep affection for Elsie, looks out for her and, we’re glad to report, genuinely enjoys her excellent company.
Elsie lives with her working-from-home daughter and granddaughter in a large, double-fronted 5-bedroom property just a short drive from the centre of a thriving market town in West Sussex. At 91, Elsie is a little frail, but not too much. A ready smile, despite losing her husband of nearly 60 years a while back, she sees the positive in life.
There’s a walking stick or two at home, as she’s not quite as steady on her feet as she would like to be.
And, through the middle of the house is a narrow steep staircase.
A Fall, and a Trip to Hospital
Elsie tripped and fell backwards one morning, landing heavily on her right arm. Winded, shocked, upset and unable to move, an ambulance was called, and an X-ray at the hospital revealed that she has broken two bones in her shoulder.
Not great. Not great at all.
Whilst bones heal quickly in the young, this knitting together process is more drawn out in nonagenarians. Considerably more drawn out, in fact, and of course, more serious.
A non-functioning right arm in a right-handed person who uses a walking stick, and who’s six months away from her 92nd birthday, can remove one’s independence at a stroke. As proved the case, here. The physical, knock-on effects matched the psychological ones: if an older person has a fall at-home, it can severely damage their confidence and affect their mental wellbeing.
Whilst we won’t go there in detail, let’s just say that the colours and brightness of life were, like the controls on a television, dialled down for a short while.
So, What To Do?
As Richard says, “When your Mum has had a serious fall at home, everyone suffers from terrible pangs of conscience. Even though we knew that nobody was to blame, you still feel terrible guilt that you should, or could have done something to prevent it.
The worry is constant.
If you’ve got a full-time job, as I have, you simply can’t be there in the way that you would like to be. Other family members take on more responsibility, and the whole family dynamic changes.
Discharged from hospital, Elsie’s recovery was slow but steady.
Most importantly, the lower floors of the house simply became inaccessible. She started living her life upstairs. Not to put too fine a point on it, and we’re quoting Richard here, “She felt imprisoned in her own home. Unable, unwilling and too nervous to use the stairs, at one fell stroke, her life suddenly shrank”
The reverberations of a fall at home can, like the ripples in a pond, spread out far and wide.
The Simple Solution – from Southern Stairlifts
Earlier this year, Elsie had a stairlift from Southern Stairlifts installed in her home.
A family discussion took place, naturally, but by all accounts it took extraordinarily little persuasion. It was, to use the American expression, a “no brainer”.
After a free survey, we put together a quote, with everything included, and were delighted when the family engaged us to carry out the project.
Fitted in just a few hours, the Southern Stairlifts team took care of everything, including a small platform at the bottom of the staircase to eliminate completely the risk of falling or tripping. Elsie and her family were impressed with how easy it all was, convinced as they were, that it would be complicated. It wasn’t. The team fixed the lift to the stairs, not the wall – so there was minimal disruption.
The lift itself is super-sturdy, whisper-quiet and incredibly easy to use. It has several built-in safety features and simply glides up to the top of the stairs. Then down again.
The Results
Elsie has now regained access to and use of her kitchen, living room and reception room. A cup of tea can be made independently. Bed time is whenever she chooses. Her shoulder, whilst unlikely to heal completely, gives her less trouble than she thought; just one of those irritating things that come with great age, but manageable.
Crucially, what was stressful, is no longer so. For the whole family. They now don’t worry quite so much, and life is better.
The stairs, now conquered with a Southern Stairlifts stairlift, are no longer a problem.
Richard now thinks that, for the time being at least, his Mum’s life has been Tefloned – smoothed over, and easier, with no fraught-with-danger jagged edges.
If only he could beat her at crosswords now and again, things would be perfect.
Would YOU like to stop worrying about your Mum, or your Dad? Life is for living, after all.
