Stair rail v stair lift?

[tobee]

My elderly dm and df have mobility issues and are living in their own house.

My dm said they had a call from an occupational therapist who suggested a stair rail for the stairs. My dm was happy with this.

However, just interested to know whether Mumsnetters have an opinion on whether a rail is the way to go as opposed to a stair lift?

Thank you

SIL organised Mil a stairlift at cost £1700. MiL didn’t use it - not even once. SiL advertised to try and recoup her investment but ended up giving it away.
Loads of tales like this in the EP board.
Do a search on Gumtree or Facebook and you might bag a second hand perfectly useable stairlift for next to nothing.

I've had a stair lift for over a year now, and I love it. Before I got it, if, for example, if I wanted to go to the bathroom, id wait until there was something else I needed to do upstairs.

I guess it depends on why your parents may need either a stair lift or rails. Among other things I have copd and asthma, so it's the walking up the stairs that's the problem. So a stair lift was the solution

I did worry about any damage to my walls (old house, wood panneling) but the lift is attached to the floor, so that was ok.

Thank you for these replies. Food for thought!

Dad used his stairlift for 3 months before going into a nursing home. It was considerably cheaper than 3months nursing home care, and allowed him to come to terms with the necessity for a nursing home.

Reconditioned is massively cheaper than new, and well worth it since so many have been used for such a short time

We have a stair lift. it's given me so much more freedom.

Thank you again

@tobee I should also have added that about ten years ago the OT who visited my parents organised for a very strong stair rail to be fitted for my DParents at no cost to them. It was wooden but just meant they could virtually swing their full weight on it when they climbed the stairs.
When mobility worsened, the OT and SW said under no circumstances should they ever get a stairlift. The explanation was that both were too frail and couldn’t be trusted not to propel themselves to the bottom by falling over it…
Sadly they were right. A couple of years later, my DF had a catastrophic fall down the stairs from which he never recovered.
So sometimes you might not get the option of Both and the choice is made for you.

My mum got the rail and used that for about 18 months. She now rents a stair lift as she can’t manage the stairs at
all. I too have read many times that they are used very little ; possibly as they are installed too late to be of benefit. As a previous poster said, they don’t go on a wall (necessarily); hers is on the floor and could be easily removed. It works off a rechargeable battery. It is slow and has failed a couple of times causing major panic and distress. The point of renting it was that the rental company would maintain. Whilst they have been out, they are not great and are very slow to respond. This is one of the very few things I haven’t organised for my parent, a sibling did. Im
mot sure I would have made the same choices but there we go.

One thing I found is a “24 hour help line” just means you can report failures 24 hours a day, not that they’ll come and fix them 24hours a day.

I don’t regret ours. It gave Dad the extra breathing time to decide that, yes, he would be better in a home

I bought one secondhand from a friend for my parents abd had it installed by the manufacturer. Inthen sold it on when they no longer needed it. It cost about £400 in the end. I wouldnt buy new. Stick with a rail for as long as you can though as its good for residual fitness to climb the stairs.

My mum took a lot of persuasion to get her stairlift and then used it for a number of years and would have been the first to say she should have got it earlier . When we removed it after she died there was literally no damage except a few holes in the stair carpet and they are covered because it was a fairly thick pile

@MereDintofPandiculation Yes, good point re:- ‘24 hour line’ meaning that someone will answer not someone will come out. It’s definitely that way with my parent.

a stair lift certainly has a place. It’s the timing of when to get it. I think what I have learnt is that the installation is not as hard as I thought it would be. Also Most stairs are probably suitable - don’t try to rule in or out based on your guess, get a company to look and suggest options. Certainly in the case of my parent the presence of the lift makes it harder to access the stairs without using the lift, easily and safely. The second hand rail installed earlier had to be removed. I have to shimmy past the seat itself although it folds to some extent. This might be problematic in a house where the there are multiple residents. I have many doubts about how good my parent’s version is - however, as it is battery powered (mains charged battery), it can’t be used excessively and I’m pretty sure it couldn’t cope with two people using one after the other as the battery needs to charge in between uses. Maybe that’s not typical.