Do you use your wheelchair indoors?

Everyday living
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Quick question for all you Wheelchair Warriors out there.

Do you use your wheelchair / scooters INDOORS? Or do you manage to get around with a walking frame / crutches / furniture-walking?

I’m considering installing a downstairs bedroom & shower room and was wondering whether I should widen doorways and allow room for a wheelchair turning circle in the shower room? I know it would make sense to do it “just in case” but I have limited space and it occurs to me that, should the “worst case scenario” arise, I have the option of putting in a stair lift and adapting the bathroom (although this option is not ideal). Moving to a bungalow is not an option.

I’m at the point of needing a wheelchair for anything more than from-car-into-shop-&-back-again. “Normal” people I have spoken with assume that once you’re in a wheelchair you also need to use it indoors so they are pushing me to make major alterations now. They don’t understand when I say that many people with MS get around indoors without their wheels.

I’m widowed, very independent, my sons are now grown and soon will no longer live at home. I’m guessing if I need a wheelchair indoors I won’t be able to manage life independently anyway.???

Any comments / suggestions gratefully received.

Emma x

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Hi Em, I think you may already know the answer… I would go with making all the doors wide enough to allow a wheelchair through.

Our place is a bungalow, but it was years before I became disabled and needed so many alterations.

We made a loft conversion for our daughters, then 16 and 11. Now it is used when they visit with their children!

To keep as much of your independence as possible, get things sorted sooner rather than later!

I am a full time wheelchair user, but am still able to get from one room to another and into the garden by myself.

Hope it all goes well.

Pollx

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I’ve heard that the advice to people with MS is that you shouldn’t get a stairlift because there may come a day when you can’t self transfer. Then you won’t be able to use the stairlift.

The advice I had was that you should consult an architect who specialises in adapting homes for disabled people because they will think of things that wouldn’t occur to you. I think, with the right adaptions, you will be able to stay in your home when much more disabled.

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Hi Emma,I have ppms and are waiting on getting a bedroom and wetroom built on my house,I have gradually got worse over the last four years from walking with a stick,to using a stair lift (I can no longer manage this now), after meeting with my OT it was felt that the extension would cover me for if did get worse than I am currently.i can no longer stand and are bed or wheelchair bound all day.The bedroom will have a wider entrance and be fitted if I ever need future use of a hoist and the wetroom will have a turning circle big enough for a wheelchair.I hope that work will start in the next month and this will ensure that I can stay in my own home.

Good luck.

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I would do it now, as you never know if you will need it or not. Better now then to have to adapt again later.

I use a wheelchair out all the time shopping etc, but i can walk around my house, as i furniture walk. I just cant walk around a supermarket. I will keep on my legs inside the house and garden for as long as I can. I know want you stop walking your muscles deteriorate really fast.

I have used my wheelchair in the house but i nearly ran over the cat so it scared me lol.

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Many thanks for your advice guys

Emma xxx

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After a lengthy period of mild decline, I went downhill rapidly earlier this year and had to use a chair for the first time. Thankfully I’m now able to walk a little bit but I mainly use the chair indoors. Wooden floors mean that I can whizz around the house and importantly get me to the loo quicker and safer than crutches would. I also find it easier and safer to get things from A to B in the chair.

We never know what’s ahead of us. So if you’re already planning to get the work done, I would make the the extension as friendly and easy as possible for someone in a chair or on crutches.

derek

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l have had a stairlift for 25yrs - and then 10yrs ago we had a large extension built that is wheelchair friendly - and downstairs wetroom. l can get about downstairs in a w/chair - or small scooter - but l now manage with a rollator to get me about and out in the garden. l can carry lots on my rollator - as well as having a seat at just the right height for me to get up and down. l have another rollator at the top of the stairs - so l can get from stairlift to rollator. Luckily, l also have a ensuite shower room to my bedroom which has grab- rails everywhere - even one next to the bed to help me get out of bed.

You do need to be prepared for what could happen. All new extensions - like houses built in the last 10yrs have to be wheelchair friendly.

l wish l had used a rollator years ago - much safer then a walking stick or crutch at keeping you upright and balanced - and for that mad dash to the loo!

Mine is a Topro Olympus - and has paid for itself over and over. Use it to take the laundry basket out to hang out washing - and l even gather up the logs for the wood-burner with it. Especially useful for when l am cooking as l can serve dinner - plates etc by putting a tray on the seat. lts a work-horse.

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Hi Emma

I use a wheelchair in and outdoors. I used the chair initially for trips out that involved long walks, then for most trips outside. I had crutches for quite a long time, first one, then two, then progressed to a walker indoors. I then had a spectacular relapse that led me to use the wheelchair indoors. Luckily I live in a bungalow, but my self propelling wheelchair wouldn’t fit into the bathroom, or very far into our bedroom. It was also a bit impractical to get out of the house. So in the space of three days, I went from a fair degree of independence within the house, to total dependance on another person, to wheel me round the house, to wash, to get to the loo, etc etc.

I ended up first in hospital then into a rehab unit for a couple of months. Meanwhile, after a few weeks, we had to rather urgently make some changes to the house. We changed the bathroom completely, moved the doorway, turned it into a wetroom and gave it a wider doorway. We reconfigured the entry into our bedroom so it was possible to get in with a wheelchair. After a couple of years, we changed the fitted wardrobes to make one on the side of the bed I can get to wheelchair friendly, ie with sliding doors and lower rails etc. We initially had a ramp put on the deck at the back of the house but this year (4 years on) changed our porch to make it accessible, with an external concrete ramp, a raised porch floor and doors that are in line as well as wider.

Very gradually over the last few years we’ve made changes to almost the whole house. I can’t easily get into our spare room as the door’s not very wide and the carpets a bit too deep piled. But that’s the only room that’s not wheelchair friendly (and it gives my OH somewhere to park all his gym kit, shoes, detritus that would drive me mad if it was in our bedroom!)

I can now do a tiny bit of walking round the house with the aid of FES plus a Topro walker, I would say, like spacejacket that the seat’s helpful, but I’m not stable enough to use it. Basically I do a miniscule amount of walking (about 5 metres maybe 3 times per day) but it’s for the exercises’ sake, nothing functional. The rest of the time I use the chair.

We’ve not had any financial help for any of the changes, luckily we could manage to pay for them. The only financial help is DLA plus the disabled discount from Council Tax.

I wouldn’t say that every person who uses a chair outside will definitely end up using it inside. Chances are, if I’d been on a DMD, I might not have had the terrible relapse that disabled me so severely (side effects from all the DMDs I’ve had), but it does make sense to make some changes now rather than have to do them in a crazy hurry like we did. I have no experience of stair lifts or actual lifts so can’t comment on either. We had already moved from a house to a bungalow when the stairs began to become a problem for me.

Sue

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