The Perfect Rise and Recline Chair
At the ICL conference, I met some very interesting people, one of whom was Andrew West. He is a metalurgist by trade and has some very interesting insights as to this and the care industry.
At some point in our lives, we may find ourselves considering an electric chair, yes I do mean the rise and recline ones, and not the life-terminating one, either for ourselves or a loved one.
Here are Andrew’s thoughts for the perfect electric rise and recline chair-remember he is an engineer specialising in the longevity of metal….
Design of rise rest recline chairs for the elderly:
An ideal chair would be:
(1) Capable of being easily moved on a carpeted floor so that one can easily vacuum underneath it. (it took three “reluctant” visits of one manufacturer to successfully achieve this, —my experience)
(2) Fitted with massage units —-but what type? percussive is perhaps OK for those with deep-vein thrombosis problems,
—-but one perhaps needs “laterally” cyclic massage units for use by the aged, as they are not so likely to cause as much cell-damage as percussive units. I am NOT an expert in this field so I do not know the relative importance of this —I am just posing a rhetorical question.
(3) When a handset is used to control these, ( and also for lumber heating pads) the locational diagram on the hand-set should be at least roughly accurate so that it coincides with the location
of the massage units on the chair itself! (-mine was defective in this way)
(4) The front lift of the chair should be designed so that as it goes up, — when it gets to about 30° from the horizontal, — the rear part of the “seat” of the chair needs to descend at the rear end. This is to stop the body from sliding the feet forward if the chair back is still vertical, the aged back would therefore be bent, and under unnecessary stress. (e.g if watching TV with the legs horizontally rested)
(5) The chair should be designed to accommodate a doctors’ instruction for the remedial process for “Cellulitis” problems*.
When walking over grass (with shoes on) in summer small flies can attack the lower legs without one even being aware of the bites, this causes infection which makes ones feet swell so one cannot even get a normal sized shoe on your feet! The usual remedy for this is a doctor’s prescription for antibiotics for a week. But it is well known that the most important thing to make
the antibiotic treatment work, is to keep the legs very highly suspended. I therefore believe that , to cover this eventuality,
the front of the chair should be capable of rising the legs to about 70° to 80° from the horizontal.
(note: Regarding Cellulitis*— one also needs to buy, one pair of very large shoes and an exactly similar style of normal sized shoes, -so that if one leg is swollen one can still go out or drive! -both shoes look similar and whichever leg has the cellulitis,-it has the bigger boot!)
(6) It is possible to get chairs with good looking urine resistant fabrics which are extremely warm, but these need the person to sit on a cushion as they cause excessive perspiration.
(7) The power source for these chairs (as also used for portable radios etc.) is usually a plug-in transformer into a 13 amp socket
(which should be of a switched type with neon indicator light).
Unfortunately, these “transformer-plugs” are often cheaply made in the far-east and sometimes have defective seals in the plastic body which give way after a few months use. This means that the old person using it can put their fingers/hand on the uncovered live electric terminals! …. Me now “Perrish the thought ” !!!!
