Assisted living facilities typically try to keep things on a one-story level. However, there are a growing number of people who are not only living longer but also joining the ranks of the senior citizen and elderly classes. This means that assisted living facilities are jam-packed, and the only way to accommodate that many people is to build up.
Many assisted living facilities are already four, five, or six stories high. If this describes your facility, you need to have an elevator and stair lifts for ALL of your stairs. Here is why.
1. Housing Regulations and Violations
At one point, when facilities first started building assisted living homes with several stories, there were far too many fires, no way to evacuate people, and many elderly citizens died because of these mistakes. After multiple lawsuits, it became clear that housing regulations were necessary to prevent more unnecessary deaths. Now, all assisted living facilities are required to equip their stairways with chair/stair lifts and ramps for safer, easier evacuation.
2. Help Keep Residents Independent and Mobile
If you slow down and stop, you will not be able to get up and move again. That is the advice many doctors give elderly patients. To help keep your residents as mobile, as independent, and as safe as possible, have them use chairlifts. No one falls, no one breaks their hip, and everyone can get between floors with greater ease and accessibility without needing much help from the staff.
3. Provide Safety Measures for Residents That Are Waitlisted for an Apartment on the First Floor
A great many residents that come to you are asking about first-floor apartments. The typical problem is that many of these apartments are already taken, which means that there is a waitlist. When new residents arrive with safety concerns and ask for a first-floor apartment (of which there are typically none available), you can show them the elevator and the state-of-the-art stair/chairlifts that can help keep them safe in an upper-level apartment until a first-floor apartment becomes available.
The best stair lifts for any facility are curved lifts. These lifts will circle all the way up to the top floor, around bends and curves over stair landings, and are controlled by the controls built into the handle of the lifts. Get both a chair and a standing lift of the curved lift variety so that both people in wheelchairs and people who can stand can use them. Install these lifts, one on each side of the stairways, so that residents can use the one they prefer or need most
