Disabilities-R-Us

Hi everybody,

I'm new here.

My partner is handicapped. She was injured in the 90's and got something called CRPS - Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, in her legs. She walks with a cane, but it's very difficult for her to do stairs - almost impossible. She was stuck on the 3rd floor of her acupuncturist's building one day, when the power went out for hours, and it was all we could do, to help her get down the stairs ( dark and we had to hold flashlights too ), and it caused a lot of pain for her. Plus she's put on weight too, due to diabetes in recent years.

We've been living in a single floor ranch home, because of that, for years, but now we have to move to a city that doesn't have many of them, and building one is not affordable. But they have a lot of older 2 story homes - may of which would be affordable.

The question is, how to adapt things so she could get up and down stairs - even if the power goes out.

Is there some kind of hand pedaled stair platform that could work for that?

Trying to figure all this out...

I don’t know of anything that she can use to go up without power but a slide that looks like a handrail would be easy enough to add to stairs as a safe emergency exit.

Perhaps you could look into an electric chair lift that attaches to a wall that could be attached to a battery source?

There are lifts for both stairways and vertical that have battery backup. They really are surprisingly affordable.

I Googled: home elevator for handicapped
and found a bunch of things, but ideally it would be simple and independent of electricity.

I'm wondering why no one has invented a reduction gear hand cranked elevator yet.

But she can do ramps ok - just has a horrible time with stairs. So I'm wondering about the slope ratio, if we were to get a house that has 3 levels ( main floor, basement and upstairs ), as most do in Colorado, and convert the stairs to ramps. If we could get a long enough ramp, that it wouldn't be a difficult climb.

The ramp ratio would take up a lot of your space.
Since your in Colorado I recommend you contact Accessible systems at 303-693-7787. They really helped us.
You mentioned hand crack. I think that having to crank yourself up the stairs trying to carry something might be a bit hard.
Another thing to consider is that crps has a tendency to spread, I know this from experience. In the long run it would be better to have a lift that she isn't depending on her strength for.
Colorado is also fantastic for solar, you can get a solar battery backup for the lift so you don't have to worry about the electrical grid.