When it comes to bathroom installation and design, there are a range of things that you need to consider, particularly if you, or anyone in your household, is suffering from reduced levels of mobility. Whether the bather suffers from arthritis, joint pain, a lack of balance or just worry over the potential of injury, you need to ensure that you make the most of intelligent disability bathroom design to create a safe and relaxing environment.
Four Important Things To Consider For Bathroom Safety
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Easy And Safe Entry Into The Bath/Shower – The ability to enter the bathtub or shower without having to raise your feet too high can hugely increase the safety of a bathroom design. Walking directly into your bathing solution is one of the major reasons why more people than ever are making the transition into wet rooms rather than traditional bathrooms.
However, for those who prefer traditional designs, walk-in baths and showers can really make a difference in a variety of ways, including:
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No barriers to trip over, reducing the risk of falling,
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Wider entry plus sturdy grab bars on the door,
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Allows for easier transfer from wheelchair to bathtub bench seat.
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Integrated Safety Features – A high-quality walk-in tub will not only feature a watertight door, to reduce the risk of slip-and-fall injuries after you have gotten out of the bath and to ensure that the bath itself fills up that much quicker, but will also have integrated safety accessories such as handrails. As if this wasn’t enough of an advantage, traditional tubs will typically require a bather to sit almost on the floor or to install a separate tub seat to make the bathroom feature as comfortable as possible.
Walk-in baths can feature a built-in seat to provide high-levels of comfort and ensure that the bathroom feature is easy to both enter and exit.
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Include Non Slip Strips Or Tiles In Your Overall Design – In addition to integrated safety precautions, you also need to ensure that you are making the most of anti-slip features to improve your bathroom, particularly if your floor is primarily wood or tiled. Both of these surfaces can grow extremely slippery when wet, so you need to make certain that you include non-slip strips or bathroom mats in your bathroom. Non-slip strips can be particularly useful in the bath or shower themselves b ut most come with anti slip surfaces.
If your floor is tiled, then non-slip tiles are a great idea, even if you only spread them out throughout the floor design, or just gather them around the areas where you have the most risk of falling.
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Powerful Lighting – Ensuring that your bathroom is clearly lit, using the very best low-energy, high-powered bulb is an absolute must when it comes to bathroom safety. By choosing clear, white light, you can make certain that you or an elderly relative can see where everything is in the room at all times.
Aside from this, it can also be extremely useful when it comes time to identify wet spots on the floor which might be a slipping hazard, and either covering them with a towel, clearing them up or just staying away from them.
Staying Safe And Aging In Place, With Bathtime Mobility
Here at Bathtime Mobility, we are extremely proud to help our elderly customers to age in place, and enjoy the comfort and independence of their own home for as long as possible, rather than be forced into a care home by increasing frailty or danger to themselves.
If you’re looking for a diverse range of reliable bathroom accessories or features to facilitate intelligent disability bathroom design, then you need to get in touch with our team of mobility specialists today on 0800 29 22 110.