Elevator - VERTICAL Wheel Chair lift? Help anyone?

Bob_Skurka · Oct 13, 2004

Well I got word an hour ago that my father in law died. So now the real work begins. I'm heading down to Albuquerque with my daughter tomorrow, I have the flight booked already. Things just happened so quickly.

 A 32 inch doorway will work, but three foot wide doorways will ease access a lot. Hallways and living spaces will want to be designed with wheelchair access and turn around space. 

We are pretty lucky about some things. When we built the house we had all the hallways and stairs made extra wide and almost every door in the house is 36" wide. We didn't do it because of any thought for wheelchairs, we were lucky enough to have the added space to allow it. One of the bathrooms is very wheelchair friendly because of its size & configuration, only a slight modification to a cabinet base would be needed. I figure an elevator could access 3 levels of the house, but not the main (formal) living room area as it is dropped down 4=' from one level or up 5' from another and no way an elevator shaft is going to be fit into that area. So basically there will be one room that would have no wheel chair access. As my M-I-L has advanced MS, she would not be moving about the house in a wheel chair under her own power, she would only be able to move with the help of an aid. Consequently we won't need to redesign for true ADA access because she cannot move under her own power and cannot get into/out of the wheel chair without full assistance. Our main goal would be to be able to get her into areas where the family is so she is simply not forced to be alone in her area of the house.

My wife said that the family's goal now is to keep her mom in Albuquerque through the winter months and then bring her up to Indiana in the spring. That would give us the necessary time to make modifications to our house with the proper planning.

jwstewar · Oct 13, 2004

Sorry to hear about your loss Bob. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and the family and wish you the best.

Golfgar4 · Oct 13, 2004

Bob,

Please accept our condolences for you, your wife and your family. Even when a person is expecting something like this to happen, it's still a shock when it finally does. You and yours will be in our thoughts and prayers.

MossRoad · Oct 14, 2004

Sorry for your loss, Bob. Please pass along our condolences to Mrs. Bob, too.

hazmat · Oct 14, 2004

Sorry to hear of your loss Bob. Our family is thinking of you.

wroughtn_harv · Oct 15, 2004

Our condolences to your family Bob.

I didn't quite get the total picture of your situation in my mind. But if it's as I understand it, multilevels, but not full floor depths, I'd consider movable lifts that could be at each floor.

A bud of mine has a couple of wheel chair lifts they mount in minibuses. They're really pretty neat, linear activators, electric over hydraulic motors, lots of nice things for an over active imagination to play with. He bought some surplus vans for his company and removed the lifts.

It might be worth considering having a couple of portable lifts made, one per floor. They could be moved to a location. She could be put on the lift and raised to the next floor.

If this sounds like a viable alternative I'm sure there's either a product out there or someone local who can fabricate it for you. Here in north Texas we Wrightway. Tommy Wright owns it. They got into the handicap access business after WWII. His father was made into a paraplegic by a sniper's wooden bullet. An old trick to take out three men with one bullet.

The idea might not be appropriate. Again, our condolences to you and your family.

Egon · Oct 15, 2004

My condolences Bob.

You must be congradulated on the quality of caregiving you're preparing for. Exlempilmentary action.

Egon

Currmudgeon · Oct 15, 2004

Sorry to hear of the loss of your FIL, Bob. Please accept my condolences.

Now, it looks like you've got your work cut out for you.

Bob_Skurka · Oct 18, 2004

Thank you all for your thoughts.

At this point here is what things look like. While there is no life insurance, there is enough of a nest egg to support my MIL for about 3+ years before the money runs out. My sister in law (my wife's sister) lives with MIL and she has been a 24 hour caretaker for the past dozen years. She will really be the one making the final choices.

My brother in law (my wife's brother) is a struggling lawyer. He and his wife live in Albuquerque and near as I can tell, they rely quite heavily on the good graces of my former FIL to help support them. As FIL is now gone, brother in law is the man of the family and has power of attorney to do anything with the finances. My brother in law means well, but . . .

Here is the problem, I went (with permission) into my FIL's office and took a BRIEF look as monthly bills, they seem to run about $7000 (much of that due to the health issues of my MIL). Social Security income appears to provide benifits of something in the neighborhood of $1500 per month from what I can tell. That is subject to revision. Life expenctancy for my MIL is anyone's guess, but it could be 5 or more years or it could be 5 months???

So from the simple money standpoint we need to figure out how to stretch the money longer than the approximate 3 years that it will last before it runs dry. If my MIL and sister in law are both moved into my house (or for that matter into my brother in law's house) then the money would likely last for more than a decade. As my brother in law's house is too small, and mine is too big, it is logical that they come to Indiana and move in here.

However, they don't want to move back to Indiana. Their friends are down there. I can't say as I blame them for not wanting to move away from their friends. However, that said, my MIL absolutely NEEDS 24 hour help. And the help MUST be trained help. So that means the only way my sister in law can leave the house, even to go to the grocery store, is if a nurse is in the house. That means that my sister in law is effectively a prisoner in the house. My father in law used to be able to assist with those tasks, but he is gone, and now there is nobody there to assist my sister in law as she takes care of MIL. My wife will be returning home later this week. So for now, my wife is helping to get things lined up, but everything with home health care is very expensive.

Logically, if we move them both into my house, they will get a wing of the house of their own, I'll put in an elevator, and all of the living expenses they would incur will be covered because I'm already paying for things like heat and telephones and food. They would not really add much to my living expenses. They could then use the nest egg for the health care and general care of my MIL, and for bringing in a nurse for a day or two a week to give both my sister in law and my wife a break. Doing that, their money would last 10 years.

As for the issue of the elevator versus lifts, I pulled the blueprints of the house and discussed them with a contractor, putting in 3 lifts would likely cost the same as putting in one elevator and would not be as convenient plus it would still require some ramps to be installed. By using 1 elevator, it would limit the number of ramps to 2, and those would only be one step each. Plus two of the lifts would have to be in totally inconvenient places in the house.

So the way things stand right now, we are going to have an architect draw up the plans we'd require. Then we will sit tight and wait to hear from my sister in law. I honestly don't know how long my sister in law can keep up 24 hour care. And while her brother & his wife mean well, they are very limited in the support that they can give and so far have been only modestly supportive with time (from what I can see) in actual care giving. I suspect that sometime next summer there will be 2 more added to my family.

Wish us luck and hope that if you are faced with anything like this that you have some good insurance policies (something my in-laws didn't have).

Currmudgeon · Oct 18, 2004

( the only way my sister in law can leave the house, even to go to the grocery store, is if a nurse is in the house. That means that my sister in law is effectively a prisoner in the house. )

That can be literally a killing situation. When my grandmother and later my aunt died, my mother provided most of the in-house care. It **** near killer her, and she wasn't facing the medical complications your MIL is. It will be important for your SIL to get some kind of relief.

( I suspect that sometime next summer there will be 2 more added to my family. )

Starting to sound like my place. I have two daughters, three grand kids, and my father living in with us. And I'm too old to join the Foreign Legion. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif