Do you have an elderly or disabled loved-one living in your home? Or are you an elderly or disabled person?

If you have any experience with senility or being handicapped, you’ll understand how it affects your everyday life as a family.

Fact is, no one wants to constantly be reminded of their disability. And for most families with handicapped family members, there’s an ongoing effort to make life feel as normal as possible, as well as to minimize the impact decreased mobility will have on a handicapped person’s life.

Living With Disability

It’s easy to take full mobility for granted, but persons suffering from decreased mobility often aren’t able to do things independently anymore. The psychological effects this has on handicapped people isn’t always fully understood by their caregivers. Many caregivers see the refusal to accept help as stubbornness and too much pride.

It’s true that disabled people are often stubborn to their own demise. Sometimes, handicapped people feel so urged to prove themselves as being capable individuals that they put their own safety at risk. This makes it difficult for caregivers, who feel responsible for the well-being of their handicapped loved one. But at the same time, giving up independence – even in basic, everyday activities – isn’t as easy as caregivers think it is.

So while caregivers often feel frustrated with the loved ones they need to care for, the loved ones who depend on caregivers experience their own sense of frustration and hopelessness because they no longer feel like capable persons.

Eventually, this can lead to an unhealthy relationship between caregivers and the ones they care for. Where the caregiver feels frustrated with their handicapped loved one, who seems to be resisting the help they obviously need. On the other hand, the handicapped loved one is feeling frustrated at the caregiver because they lack the empathy to understand their desire for living independently.

To manage this problem and prevent bad relationships from forming, it’s important that both the caregiver and handicapped loved one communicate about their respective roles in the situation. Both being disabled and caring for a disabled person can be psychologically straining, so from both sides families should aim to have understanding relationships with one another.

However, one of the best things caregivers can do for both themselves and their handicapped loved one, is to find safe ways to help their loved one regain as much independence as possible. Not only will this take some of the workload off the caregiver, it will also help the handicapped person feel more confidence and self-worth as a capable individual.

Walk-in Tubs and Immobility

As mentioned earlier, handicapped people strive for the independence to do basic, everyday activities by themselves. This is especially true for elderly people, as they find it difficult to give up the independence they once had. There’s also a sense of shame some elderly people feel when their children have to help them with self-grooming tasks.

Every elderly person living with their children was once a parent capable of raising a child and sustaining them. The role reversal that comes when people age often just feels difficult to accept.

By allowing elderly and handicapped loved ones independence is their self-grooming, caregivers can avoid the resentment and shame that comes with losing one’s independence.

Walk-in tubs are a popular way of making bath time safer for elderly and handicapped people. Bath time can be rather dangerous for people who experience decreased mobility, especially when getting in and out of a regular tub. Walk-in tubs aim to solve this problem by allowing bathers to step into the tub through a door.

Bathers who suffer from decreased mobility can simply step into the walk-in tub as if it were a regular bathtub.

Walk-in tubs come with different features that are meant to make them as safe as possible to use. Like a non-slip surface and even temperature control, that can help to avoid hot water burns.

Luxury for the Whole Family

Another great benefit of walk-in tubs is that many are fitted with massage jets. This is not only great for your elderly loved one suffering from muscle and joint aches, but also for the rest of the family.

Many people who do office work, sitting in a chair for long hours every day, are prone to backaches. Children who take part in sport activities will also be prone to muscle stiffness as a result of working out. This makes soaking in a tub with massage jets an ideal luxury for the whole family, not just the handicapped.

To make bath time extra relaxing, you can also use essential oils while enjoying a massage in the bath. If you find that you have problems falling asleep, doing this might even help you to sleep better.

It’s not easy to live with restricted mobility, neither is it easy to care for a stubborn loved one who puts themselves at risk to prove their independence. But by getting a walk-in tub installed, you’ll have peace of mind and enjoyment in at least one issue that could become problematic in your relationship with your family members.