Please help with ideas to get a wheelcair up stairs

maynaka · Post by **maynaka** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:30 am

We live in a tri-level home. It has become extremely difficult for me to use stairs. It is impossible for my husband to pull me up the stairs in the chair himself.

Because of the way the stairs are situated, a normal chair lift is not possible. The staircases are side by side so there is no room for a chair to go to the top and turn to get out of the chair.

We looked at a ramp, but due to limited space at the bottom of the staircase, the length of the ramp would have to be too short; therefore, impossible to use.

We looked at an evacuation chair (basically locks the wheelchair in place) making it easier to move the chair up the stairs. This would have worked but my insurance company just denied it (cost of $3700).

Any ideas or suggestions to alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

M

robbie · Post by **robbie** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:56 pm

could you keep a second wheelchair upstairs?

maynaka · Post by **maynaka** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:07 pm

That would help once I got to the next floor, but I would still need to get up the steps to get to the chair.

robbie · Post by **robbie** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:26 pm

sorry maynaka i misunderstood can you get any financial help from your local ms society for a chair lift and any renovations to make it work?

maynaka · Post by **maynaka** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:52 pm

That's something I didn't think about. The MS Society here is usually pretty useless; they just hand out books, and give neuro recommendations (based on my experience).

It's certainly worth a call to see if they would subsidize anything.

Thanks.