Raised Toilet Seats Can Help Prevent Injuries

Raised Toilet Seats Can Help Prevent Injuries

As most senior citizens are well aware, the bathroom can be a very hazardous place for anyone whose degree of personal mobility is less-than-ideal. As bone mass begins to decrease as people age, this risk is exacerbated due to the increased severity of potential injuries resulting from slips and falls in the bathroom.

There are many different risk factors in the bathroom alone, perhaps the most common of which are wet floors and the burden of climbing over the wall of the bathtub to get into the bath or shower. However, these are hardly the only risk factors involved with using the facilities.

For those with limited mobility, back pain, arthritic/sore knees or general weakness in the knees and lower back, the task of assuming one’s seat atop his or her throne can be just as dangerous as getting into and out of the tub. This is particularly true for individuals who suffer from pain or weakness in the knees and back.

The limited degree of flexibility coupled with heavy weight shifting rapidly as the person starts to bend his/her knees and back to sit down can disrupt the person’s balance, often resulting in a fall. Add to that the increased pressure and heavy weight crashing down to the floor and you’ve got a recipe for a broken hip.

Luckily, there are ways to quickly, easily and cheaply modify one’s bathroom in such a way that the risk of injuries related to falls is minimized. Just as there are myriad products designed to help a person get into or out of the bathtub, remain seated while in the shower and provide a gripping surface while standing in and around the shower; there are also a wide variety of items designed to help reduce the risk of injury associated with using the commode.

Raised Toilet Seats are among the most popular of these items for a couple of reasons. For one thing, they are relatively inexpensive, yet provide a substantial boost to personal safety. These products reduce the amount of space one needs to bend their back and knees in order to sit down on the toilet. This translates into a reduced probability that the person using the commode loses his or her balance while attempting to take a seat. In addition, by locking on to the actual toilet seat, raised toilet seats do not slip to one side or the other, helping further reduce the risk of falling while sitting down.

On some models, additional features are present that enhance safety even further. For example, raised toilet seats with hinges or clamps are a popular choice among consumers. The clamps go above and beyond the locking feature found on most standard elevated toilet seats by providing even more stability, which can be helpful to those who are severely overweight and/or who struggle greatly with balance.

All of the items discussed herein help to improve safety in the bathroom for both elderly folks and the handicapped. The combination of grab bars, tub bars, safety rails, non-slip bath/shower mats, shower chairs, bath stools, tub benches, tub boards, raised toilet seats and/or toilet safety frames can take much of the risk out of performing everyday activities, which in the long run and bigger picture could theoretically help extend an individual’s life by a considerable amount if in fact the devices do stave off a severe injury that would have occurred had the items not been present.

Anyone for whom using toilet and/or taking a bath or shower constitutes a legitimate risk of falling who does not have 24-hour in-home care available to them for whatever reason should strongly consider making a small investment into safety-proofing their bathroom. For the cost of 2-3 months of life insurance, a senior citizen or handicapped person can make great strides in helping protect against the possibility that their life insurance policy need be redeemed anytime in the near-to-mid future.

A broken hip will end up costing a lot more than the products needed to protect against it, and not just in terms of one’s finances.