Handicap Shower Stalls

5 Tips To Increase Safety In Handicap Shower Stalls

Increasing the safety of your family members or guests is top priority, especially if you have anyone with disabilities or physical handicaps.  Going overboard in the design of handicap shower stalls can often set your family members up for even more harm, rather than helping care for themselves.  In order to avoid having your elderly or disabled family members injured while scrubbing up, there are a few tips that you need to take into consideration.

Tip #1 – Use sticky mats, everywhere!

When your family members are moving around inside of the shower, they can often times fall from the slippery surface on the showers floor.  These sticky mats are incredibly cheap, especially when you compare their benefits against the cost of your family member falling, and injuring themselves.  The best places you can put rubber or plastic in a handicap shower stall is on the floor inside of the shower, underneath your bench legs, as well as on the floor outside of the shower.  These areas are where your feet spend the most time, so you need to make sure that you have proper balance, without a fear of falling down.

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Extra Long Vinyl Bath Mat

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Tip #2 – Do away with the glass doors!

Even though you may love the look of glass shower doors, you are going to need to get rid of them.  Glass doors are nice to look at, but if you or your family member slips inside the shower, they can easily give way, leaving glass shards scattered throughout the shower and bathroom.  Instead of worrying about this situation, find someone who wants to buy the glass doors, and head out to purchase a new shower rod and curtain.  A shower curtain is much safer for you or your family members than glass doors will ever be.

Tip #3 – Ensure proper placement of the grab bars.

If you intend to safe money during the project, which most homeowners will, you may want to consider buying a handicapped shower stall that is bare of any grab bars.  Because you are trying to save money, you may have to sacrifice features, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Going bare allows you to ensure proper placement of the grab bars once you have the shower installed.  Your bathroom may not be the same shape, size, or style of the bathroom area that the stalls manufacturers had in mind.  This can cause your family members to lose their balance as they reach for bars that are in awkward positions.  You will have to install your own bars onto the stall, though.

Tip #4 – Shower grab bars with suction cups

When using grab bars in a shower or bath, it is best if they are installed directly into the stud in the wall. This will provide a more secure shower grab bar. Sometimes you will be unable to anchor the grab bars. In that case you will be looking for shower grab bars with suction cups. These type of grab bars are for balance and not to hold your weight. They can help steady a person, but if you need a grab bar for weight, tehn you will need one that can be anchored to the wall.

Bridge Medical Single Grip Portable Grab Bar

Falls are the most common accident around the home, the majority of them happening in the bathroom. More than 1/3 of all adults 65 years and older fall…

Bridge Medical Medium Telescoping Portable Grab Bar

FFalls are the most common accident around the home, the majority of them happening in the bathroom. More than 1/3 of all adults 65 years and older fall…

Rose Safe-er-Grip Bathtub & Shower Handle, 23.5 in.

Get a handle on bathroom safety with this bathtub and shower handle. The 23.5 in. Safe-er-Grip Balance Assist Bar for tub and shower from Rose Health…

Tip #5 – Avoid sharp edges.

When you get rid of the glass doors in your shower area, or if they were included handicap accessible shower stalls, there are going to be tracks that remain around the opening of the shower.  These sharp edges can cut your family members relatively easily.  To keep from having to worry, simply remove the door tracks from the stall or shower, and fill in the holes with a caulk or waterproof plumbers putty.

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Best Way To Prepare Your Handicap Shower Stall Installation For Use

Once you understand the need for installing a handicap shower stall into your home, you will have to start shopping for reasonable prices.  One of the best ways to find great deals is to go back to the basics, and purchase a bare bones shower enclosure designed for people with disabilities and physical handicaps.

These showers will not have any of the options included on them, which is perfect for you, because the bathroom in your home is not the same as the area where the enclosure was constructed, and in order to achieve the best placement, you will want to install the accessories yourself.  From grab bars, to a bench or chair, and even a few extra modifications, here are steps that you will need to perform to provide a safe bathing area for your family members.

Step 1: Install the grab bars properly. Sometimes, manufacturers will include grab bars that are installed in a diagonal direction.  This may look good from a design aspect, but in terms of usability, it is setting your family members up for chances to become injured.  As the bar gets wet, and you place pressure on it, your hand will begin to slide down.  When your family members do not have the same strength in their hands that you do, they could end up falling.  Instead, always install the bars on a horizontal or vertical angle, rather than diagonally.

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Step 2: Install a shower bench. Saving money here is relatively simple if you use your imagination.  You could go all-out with a handicapped shower stall bench, or you could modify an old lawn chair to suit your needs.  The typical white lawn chairs, made of plastic or hard nylon, work the best in a shower enclosure.  At a cost of $10, you can add sticky feet to the chair, and have a mobile bench inside the handicap showers that not only saves you a ton of money, but is incredibly functional as well. Teak shower benches are great for the shower. Teak stands up to hard use in the shower and come in many styles and sizes.

Medline Aluminum Frame Transfer Bench with Adjustable – 1 Ea

Aluminum Frame Transfer Bench Push-button assembly for arm and back. Durable, blow-molded, plastic bench. Wide base, and suction-cup tips on two legs…

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Teak Wood Folding Shower Seat, Bench, Stool – Bath, Sauna Seating

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Step 3: Convert the glass into fabric. Once you have the bars, and bench in place, you should think about getting rid of the glass doors.  The materials used to manufacturer these types of glass doors cause them to break into thousands of small pieces with the slightest amount of pressure.  If your family member happens to fall into the doors while bathing, they could easily shatter causing severe injuries.

Step 4: Place mats on the floor. Moving around, both inside and out of, the shower is a potentially harmful situation unless you have taken proper care to ensure there are non-slip mats in key areas.  On the floor of your shower stall, as well as underneath the feet of your bench or chair are the most important places.  However, once your family member exits the shower, they will also need a non-slip mat or floor carpet to avoid falling.  If you have carpet in the bathroom area, the latter may not be as important, compared to tile or decorative concrete floors that can become incredibly slick when wet.

Ginsey Rubbermaid Extra Large Rubber Bath Mat, White

Ginsey, rubbermaid,  large rubber bath mat, white, 17-inch by 36-inch.

Rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars with 28 customer reviews

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Ginsey Rubbermaid Shower Stall Rubber Bath Mat, White

Ginsey, rubbermaid, shower stall rubber bath mat, white, 17-inch by 22-inch.

Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars with 3 customer reviews

$14.99

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