- ♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ the two most famous physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- Oh. Brad Heineck physical therapist.
- Because were the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- You know, in our opinion of course Bob.
- Where going to talk about the 10 best ways to safely
choose and also get out of a recliner
or chair after you've had stroke, maybe surgery or injury.
Maybe you're just getting older and you're getting weaker.
- Right.
- So,
- And you know, this is exactly this situation.
Both my parents are in.
So I've become a little bit
of an expert on this,
- that's right.
- In the last couple years.
- And, and so have I, you know
this is something that we are thrown
into this role, you know, that we're kind of in betweener's
we're still taking care of children somewhat.
And then we're also taking care
of our adults, but our parents.
- Right. Right.
(stutters)
Luckily as therapists, we know the concepts
of mechanics to sit, to stand how to get stronger.
- Yeah.
There's a lot of things to take, keep in mind.
- But Yeah. When you're actually looking for furniture to
make sure it's the proper and the safe furniture you get
you wanna make sure if you're gonna spend 500
a thousand dollars or $1,500
you wanna make sure it's gonna be the right furniture.
- Right that's gonna do the thing.
And there's a lot of pitfalls that you wanna avoid
and we're gonna help you do that.
And by the way, Brad,
- Yes.
- See people wander into our shores.
- Yes. They're coming in by the thousands.
- By the way, if you are new to our show
please take a second to subscribe to us.
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- Yeah.
A whole ton Huh?
- Yeah. I I'm a whole bunch of
- That's 2000 pounds.
Yeah. Okay.
The big thing about getting out of the chair is first
of all, functionally, you need to get out of the chair to
get around the house.
But the transfer here sit to stand is one of the most
common areas where there's gonna be a fall
- Yeah.
- And they're gonna fall break a hip, bump their head
whatever. So make sure we get things right.
So first thing, if you're looking for a chair
it's the recliner.
And we're gonna talk a little bit about recliners
but also some basic chairs, just like Bob sitting down here.
First thing is how high should the seat pan
or the seat rest, you can call it.
And like, Bob is right here
- And I'm a tall guy.
- He is.
- So, and you can see, my knees are still
a little bit higher than my hips.
- Right.
- Which this is probably still acceptable.
- Right.
- But what you don't want is when we're up like this
and a lot of time, you know, where, where I sink in
so far, because then I'm gonna have a really
difficult time getting out of the chair.
- Right.
Yeah. So if his bottom and so far
in his knees are coming up in his chest.
- Yeah.
- On the other hand if I have a short person
and their feet are dangling.
- Right.
- And we had that situation with my father
and we'll get into that a little more
- You cut off pressure here
- Right? The circulation down to the legs and which is
a big problem for a lot of people
older people, they have circulation problems.
- And they start building up fluid in their legs then
- Right. If they get CHF and other, you know, diabetes
those kind of situations, you really wanna avoid that.
So make sure their feet are flat
on the ground, but yet the knees
- Aren't way up like this
- Right? We're not flexing the hip too much.
- That's probably one of the most critical things
isn't in brad?
- Right. That's, that's kind of the base.
And actually when I went to-
- and these do come in different heights is what you're
- Saying?
- Right.
- Recliners.
- When you go to the furniture store
take a tape measure.
You know, if your parent or your loved one friend
whoever it is is sitting there.
And like this would be a proper, proper for me.
I'm gonna measure the height, this
so have an idea where we should be.
- Oh that's a good idea
- Oh yeah.
And then the other thing is measure the width of a chair.
Cause if you've got someone that's a larger person
you wanna get 'em to fit in there.
Or if they're smaller person
you don't want the chair too wide because the width
of a chair here, I just found out this last weekend can vary
from the ones I looked at 20 inches to 24 inches.
- And when they do, if you're a thinner person
you're gonna lean like this and that's gonna put stress
on your back.
- Right.
- You know, you want to be straight up and down.
- Exactly.
- You wanna make sure you're right in between them.
- Yep.
- Not too hot, not too cold.
- Exactly.
And also if it's too wide, you don't get a good push off.
- Right? Good point.
Yeah. You can't get their leverage
- Which by the way, Bob brings up another good point
is arm rest.
- Right.
- You need some good solid arm rests.
And, and you know, some of these chairs they'll have
these fancy armrest that are rounded here.
Get a good armrest that is square here.
So that when you push it's up here, you're not reaching
back here.
- Ideally the farther, the armrest goes out to better.
Right. I I've seen chairs actually.
And that they've made for nursing homes where
the armrest extends way out here.
- Yeah.
- I don't know if you've seen those Brad.
And so when they get up, now they can really lean forward
and get up.
Whereas if they're way back here, you know
you can do this type of thing where you can't get
your way forward.
- Exactly. You end up falling backwards.
And, and, and there you go.
That's another thing for people who are more able bodied
they can start doing dips.
- Oh
- It's a joke Bob. It's a joke.
- There's a dip in the room.
I'll tell you that.
All right.
What's the next thing Brad?
- Okay. If you have a chair at home,
let's say like in my father's case,
he broke his hip. He came home.
His chair was working pretty good before is a little low
but he could still get out
but now,
- He cant,
- He cannot get out.
So options.
If, you know, if the person has a nice new recliner
it's like, what are we gonna do?
We got a new recliner.
Do we have to go buy new one?
- Right.
Just because they can't get out of it?
while there's a few things you can try.
If it's a temporary thing
and the person wants to get strong enough,
you know that likely won't need any
adjustments is...
a lot of people.
- Oh, just a pillow.
- You could just throw a pillow like this in.
And if you raise a person enough, one inch, you'll be amazed
at how much easier it is for them to stand up.
- Oh, I've been shocked.
We've had patients like that.
Like you said, that just the one inch makes the difference
between being able to get up and not get up.
- Right. It could be this multiple tents to, oh
that's a lot easier.
- Yeah.
- So, the thing about these pillows is
because this is exactly what happened to my dad.
I came over a week later and his pillow
- Was pushed back there
- And he was sitting back
- and he couldn't get up.
- Yeah. And it's all jammed back in there.
And I says, dad, look at the pillow.
He says, well, he really didn't notice it.
You know, he are too concerned, He's watching CPAN.
So if you get,
like here we have
a two inch firm foam cushion, you know
and you could get these, this is actually from a
an old wheelchair cushion I've got, but you know
if you get something like this
out of old piece of furniture
or you go to a furniture repair shop
and they may sell you a two inch piece of firm
where it's square fits in there nice.
- Yeah. You want it fairly firm because if you
if you sink right through it,
it not gonna make any difference.
- Yeah. If it's that foam that just goes shhhh
- Right, right to the bottom.
- It needs to be firm pushing
and it gives some spring.
And it's more comfortable.
- Again, I can see, as soon
as you sit in there, Brad, you don't sink as much.
- Yep.
- I mean, you can see that it's
- it feels better than the pillow
the pillow couldn't work.
You know, if it's gonna be a week or two, when
they're strong enough for a month, you know, you, this is
these are some of the options you can use.
- Sure.
- If it's a long term thing where it's like
they're gonna need this elevated then,
and you don't wanna buy a new chair for a thousand dollars
or whatever may be in you're handy, or, you know
someone that that's handy with woodworking
you build a platform and raises the whole chair up
which is exactly what we did from,
- And we have one here.
- Yeah. So we just took a piece of, we got chipboard here
because plywood work great.
And the big thing about this is you have to have
a shoulder all the way around, because if it slides off
and the chair tips off well then
- Oh sure. That would, and everyone tips off
- That would be disastrous.
Wouldn't it?
- Yeah. If you don't have those, you literally
should screw the feet down into the wood, but this
works pretty darn and good.
So Bob and I, we are going to be strong
like bull and lift this chair in.
There we go.
- Are we in?
- Let me see if the frame is- yes, it's in.
- Wow.
- And so now you can see
you can first and everything is wonderful.
And now look at my, my feet now.
They don't, they don't touch for, so for me
this would be a little too high.
- A hair.
Yeah.
- It's not too bad.
Well, if I took my shoes
off, then I probably would be dangling
- If you, if you tend to use it
with the legs extended out all the time though.
Yeah. I don't know that I would, I'd be as concerned.
- Right? What ha what happened with my dad is we
I made this form, but I, I, it was two inches higher.
This one, we cut off
- Two inches higher than this?
- Right. Cause it was,
- Oh, wow.
- Just cause I didn't know.
I just had to come up with something in the width
of a two by four plus a half inch plywood equals four inches
and I thought that'd work and he would sit there.
His feet would be, but he could get up really easy.
- Yeah.
- But it was a circulation problem.
So then we, we trimmed this one down two inches.
So you know, that's how that works.
- These are very common in nursing homes.
We, they have a lot of 'em right.
It, they, they tend to use 'em in, in their rooms.
- Yep.
- And it's a lot, it's a lot, you know
then you've you have it for another chair or whatever.
- Yeah.
- And it's a lot cheaper in buying a new chair.
- Exactly.
- So good
- Way to do that.
Like I say, I gotta be a little handy.
So you wanna go over the right way to get out of a chair.
- Right. And that's can be a whole thing too.
You may not even have to go through all this.
If the person, if you're loved one, whatever is
having problems, getting out of the chair and they're going
like this and they have their feet up in front like this
and, and they're trying to push up and you get
this multiple attempts and that's not working well
what we say the first step is get the feet
in as far as you can.
Okay. The next step is-
- Well, I would say the first step Brad is yeah
- Right.
- To get to the edge.
Right.
You, you could do it one way or another.
- Yeah.
- Scoot the bottom forward.
Yeah. You're that would be better Bob.
And then the feet under, so butt
forward feet under and then the nose,
- Yep.
- Over your toes.
- Yep.
- This little bit of lean right here.
Once you do the first two moves makes a big difference
- And then using the arms.
- Yep.
- Because if you try, if you try to get up
if I try to get up without moving, my nose is forward.
- Right.
- I mean, it's very difficult.
- Right.
- And, and a lot of times people don't realize
that when they're trying to help somebody, they get in front
of 'em like this.
Yeah. And then the person can't lean forward.
Yeah. So they can't get up and they're like, oh
they can't get up.
But if you get off to the side and now you
help them, they're able to lean forward and get
- Up. Right.
- Exactly. So
- Okay. Now the big, the big daddy,
people sometimes jump
to the conclusion.
Oh, we've gotta get one of those electric lift chairs.
- Yeah.
- Which are really nice.
And we actually did both.
My parents have 'em now we just bought one for
my dad two days ago.
But we went through all these things first.
- You're a good son.
- Yeah.
Well we, we
- Shared,
- Yeah. Our only concern about lift chairs is
that I can tell almost right away when I see somebody
when I do their testing on the muscles, on them
that they have a lift chair
because their muscles get weak from using it.
- If they use the chair to, to get themselves
- Up.
- Right.
If they put it all the way up,
- Right.
They should only put it up as high as they need to
to still get up on their own.
- Exactly.
- Cause you, you get strengthening
from repetitive getting up out of a chair.
- Right.
Actually for, for people who are not familiar
with the lift chair, it's a recliner.
It looks just like a recliner, but there's a
you plug it into the wall.
There's a cord and there's a handle, right.
A little cord with a handset
and there's a up button and a down button.
Some have heat and vibration, all those buttons.
- Yeah.
But the basic one is up and it just literally lifts you
up to about this high, which makes it really easy to get up.
And it also reclines back.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- Electrically.
- Yeah. It's all electric.
Very convenient.
The way my mother uses hers is she raises hers
up to one spot and she doesn't touch the electric anymore.
I said, mom, I bought that.
So you can lift your feet up and elevate your legs.
She says she does not wanna wear out the electric motor.
She's not gonna use that's the way it is.
- Yeah.
- Oh, that's right.
We, one day actually we were over there and I said, mom
let's put the feet up.
So we put her feet up, electrically.
She's like this sleeping.
And then we, my wife and I went
for a walk and we came back and it was evening
and the chair's empty and the chair's still up.
I said, where's mom, she's not in the chair.
She didn't put the chair down here.
She is in the bed sleeping.
I have no idea how she got her legs around
like this and got out of the chair.
But she did.
- She didn't wanna wear out the electrical motor there.
- Yeah. So we don't put it up anymore for her.
- She knew what she's doing.
- Yep. Yeah.
She definitely knows what she's doing.
- What's the cost on those Brad electric chairs.
- Looks, we're looking anywhere is
between 800 and $1,700.
- So a lot of money.
- Yeah. So yeah, they're, they're expensive.
But the, the expensive ones have all the gadgets
which have vibration heat, things like that.
Because if the person's a little confused, like I know for
both my parents up and down, they get, but if they had mom
my dad would understand the buttons, but mom
she wouldn't want 'em anyways.
But up and down is good for most people.
- Right.
And, and it shows your mom too though.
I mean even the, the down she didn't do.
So I mean, you gotta be careful if someone
your cognition is not up the par.
- Right.
And you know, normally she would, but she was sleepy.
You know, she was thinking about getting back to bed
and it's like, well, here we are.
- Right.
- If you get one like this, this is a good example
of a chair.
Probably not to get because of the action.
If it's not the electric one, because watch what
happens when I pull this lever,
it, it pops up kind of quickly.
- Right.
- It's okay.
- But, and it's difficult to get down,
- Right.
Yeah. Cause I gotta have a lot of hamstring strength
to get this down and then also make sure you
have something here so that they can't someone
can't get their leg in there.
Yeah. And that would be a good place to fall.
If you're trying to get up with that up
you put your foot through their big problem so.
Overall Bob
- You gotta watch out for pets too, by the way.
- Well, yeah, yeah.
You always gotta watch out for pets.
- Pets get caught under there.
I'm -I'm serious.
We almost had one.
- Oh really?
- Yeah. That
- Your cat.
- Yeah.
- I suppose you were bummed about that.
Yeah.
- I don't have a love affair with cats.
Sorry. Well cat lovers
- But
- I'm gonna take a nap, Bob.
I'm in good shape.
- All right. Thanks everybody for watching.
- Yep. Good luck with your chair.