Assistive Technology Think-A-Thon - Bedroom Accessibility

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welcome to understanding and adapting life webinars and podcasts focusing on many ways we can live a fuller life by adapting and accommodating for issues difficulties and challenges we experience in our daily lives [Music] so hello everyone and welcome to networks for training and development accessibility series today's think-a-thon is going to focus on bedroom accessibility and it will be led by michelle sparling she's going to lead the conversation today so feel free to chime in with any questions ideas if you have any problems that you want to have us all work together to solve for you we can do that too so take it away michelle sounds good let's dive in i broke down our conversation into two distinct areas and my guess is they're going to kind of all mix together anyway but if we could separate into two conversations around items or arrangements for a restful night's sleep so if you think of your bedroom and you think of things that you might have in your bedroom or those that you support or those that you know or you love or maybe it's the way the room is designed or where the furniture sits how does that work for a good night's sleep you know a lot of it connects to our bed too to sleep well but there's a lot of other things too so that's one part part of the conversation we'll have to start with and then the second part we'll switch gears and take a look at items or arrangements to make your bedroom more convenient and accessible so that's it a whole other piece of what are some things actual items things you can purchase or ways that we set things up so that it's more convenient and accessible so does that make sense and we'll just kind of go with the flow feel free to jump in at any point you can use the chat box you can just unmute yourself we're a small group here so just feel like we're having a conversation so nikita is going to help do some annotation on this slide so let's just dive right in and have a conversation so what are some things that you have now in your bedroom that help you to get a good night's sleep or it could be someone you love or it could be someone you support anything in particular darkening curtains oh great white noise or a sound machine i have a salt lamp that's on a timer that's until i fall asleep and then it turns off well that's cool yeah i think i have one of those in my house we need to use it more bethany says in the chat my husband would say his weighted blanket how many of you have a weighted blanket we have one in our house but now it's too hot for me so that doesn't help me get a good night's sleep anymore what else ceiling fan that's what i was gonna say too i need that fan on yeah many people sleep with their television on right just to have background sound or music i have to lower the temperature in my bedroom now every night that is helping me tremendously nancy jeff that's exactly you said the same exact thing in the chat box thank you we're alike there how about cooling sheets i haven't tried those but i've heard they work well i should probably invest i have them i have you know all bamboo sheets yeah do they help they're amazing how about any particular kind of pillow yeah like a body pillow oh absolutely absolutely good snuggling absolutely yeah i love my feather pillow because it's really soft and my head kind of sinks in it but it's on top of another pillow that's a little bit more supportive i've tried so many pillars and what i found is that the most smushy ones are best for me i tried the heavier thicker bamboo ones and they hurt my neck so it's really an experiment trying to find the best pillow what about earplugs like drawn out people snoring next to you that's a good point yeah how do you deal with um a significant other that's in your room that might be a little bit noisy at night or if your temperature's on a whole different uh clock there um you know if one person's hot one person's cold i've actually looked to see because i was like oh man it'll be really great you really should have sheets where you could sew like it's flannel on one side and regular sheets on the other side and i could put a patent on that and i looked and there's somebody on etsy who's actually doing that i think it's getting some because i like the cool sheets my husband needs the flannel sheets and then just like having bedding that could be multi-purpose there's adjustable beds that are very helpful for many people that one side could be one firmness the other side could be another or you could adjust your side of the bed and the other side you know your partner could have a different setting to the bed they're all super helpful anything else i don't know if we're going to launch into the but for somebody that i'm going to talk about a little bit later she would not have been able to have a good night's sleep without knowing that she could easily get in and out of the bed when she needed to um yes we are going to talk about that too about their rumor arrangement to make sure that it's perfect for people yep for everyone i went searching for a number of different photos and it was fun to do this so i'm going to share some things and maybe this will kind of help us think through some of the things that we already said but they're kind of cool amazon is a wonderful place as you all know to find things you can get things at really good prices it's good to do a little searching when you're looking for something specific but it's a good place to start and then go do some research look at other companies and see what you find but so much is available on amazon there's lots of different options wedges are really popular memory foam is really popular if you have specific physical needs with your body you can find just about anything out there right so i just grabbed a few different interesting types of pillows so it's good to experiment and see what works for you here's some bed options which we know that there's so many different options out there today if you just type in adjustable beds into google you'll see so many different things but if you're working with or you live with someone who uses a wheelchair it's great to have that wheelchair seat be level with the bed itself so as you can see in this picture this guy is getting up off of the mattress so that he can transfer easily into his chair so just something to think about and what does that look like for everyone because it is going to be different for everyone and there's so many options for box springs and new box springs and different types of firmness of beds that it's really a whirlwind when you go out there exploring looking for a new mattress what the options are and to try to figure out what works best for you right yeah i think that easy solution of taking out the box spring and putting a mattress down on just like a board helps to lower the bed because there's a lot of options for no cost adaptations they're easy to do absolutely and how about recliners i've heard of a number of people that don't sleep well in a bed but they sleep better in a recliner and there's a number of reclining chairs on the market that are made now for people in that situation so and they range in price i've seen 500 to a few thousand dollars so depending on what your needs are you can find something it's good too if someone maybe sleeps or naps a lot and they prefer to have a regular bed and maybe they have an adjustable or not but just to know that they're comfortable when they're taking their naps during the day it's a good thing as well we mentioned the white noise machine my grandson has been living with a white noise machine since he was born and it's hard for me to listen to it when i go into his bedroom i turn it off right away it's so loud i feel but he's been raised with it and it works for him and he sleeps great with it so it's good for many different people how about aromatherapy some people may sleep better just to having that aromatherapy scent in the air you can set it on low so it'll last throughout the night it's fun to kind of practice if you're into aromatherapy the different scents and how they can help you to get a good night's sleep what's the most popular calming scent lavender lavender i have three oils that i use every night in specific parts of the body i refer to them nighttime oils every night nice just part of a ritual to get ready because that's the other thing that we didn't mention is having a ritual for sleep having a ritual for getting ready for bed is something that is often suggested to people who have trouble sleeping getting to sleep is having that ritual building whatever works for you and watching the activities you do before you go to bed working with young children i am always telling parents no sugar before bed no bright lights and tv no screen time quiet snuggles and story time are best absolutely for all of us not just kids all of us right snuggling yeah cup of tea warm tea or something warm to drink not caffeine yeah chamomile tea yeah just picking some relaxing things to settle down from your day's activities it does make a big difference yeah don't watch the news before bed right how about air humidifiers or dehumidifiers depending on your environment so i know in my house we try to upstairs have air humidifiers and in the basement we have to have a dehumidifier so we have both kind of going on that helps with moisturizing or de-moisturizing the air air cleaners can also help you should add that to this slide right so having either a whole house filter on your heating system air conditioning system or having a room by room air cleaner can help with allergies asthma all kinds of things but especially around you know lungs and sinuses that kind of stop us from sleeping well at night anything else and bethany you said you have cooling pillows chris you watch youtube before bed and nikita said my humidifier is my best friend in the winter when the heat is on yes because we get like dried out skin dried noses all that right anything else all right well let's switch and we can kind of make a combination conversation whatever pops up but think about convenience in the bedroom next so what are some things that you have in your bedroom that make your space more accessible and convenient either to you or those that you support or people that you live with whatever it might be what makes it convenient for you i just basic stuff clock that also plays music and is within arm's reach lights within arms reach books to read within arm's reach all of that stuff awesome and i have the alarm clock that shines the time on the ceiling because otherwise i'd have to put my glasses on to look at the clock to know what time it was and i have the same thing and i have a picture of it here too just to look up at the ceiling and say okay i don't have to get up yet yep i think the location of your bed in your room in regards to the bathroom is probably something to a lot of people kind of pay attention to to because so that you have the most direct path the least cluttered path to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night in the dark chris said my phone and sometimes my tablet yep and andrea said your night light i have an under cabinet light in my bathroom that's motion sensitive because the night light was too bright for me if i get up and stumble the light kicks on for me that reminded me rosa we used to have it it was more of a gag gift and we used it for a while then i was like eh i put it in my sun stocking it was for the bathroom in the toilet it was a light that would come on when you go and lift the lid at night and it would have different colors to it so that you could see when you're going to the bathroom at night so it might be hot pink or purple or a blue uh we have one because it was a guy gift yeah it's just the cleaning factor i finally throw it out because i was like yeah i don't know about this it sits on the edge of the seat but it's kind of fun and you know it's kind of a silly thing but it works it does the job some other things could be you know lower light switches for people who are using wheelchairs and any other type of device to get around i was going to mention for my mom it was one of the the big icebreakers was she didn't want any assistive technology in her place because she was afraid it was going to look ugly and be stigmatizing and all of that but her biggest issue and the thing that opened up for lots of other possibilities was she was having great difficulty getting in and out of bed she did not want bed rails that was like the last thing she wanted or anything like that so we found one of her very pretty arm chairs and we backed it up to the bed and she used that as a support to get in and out of bed and it worked for a very long time and then during the day she could just swing it by the side of her bed and it just looked like a chair beside her bed that kind of opened up adapting and accommodating all kinds of other things in her apartment for her but that was the first that was the start we recently assisted a family member in moving he has some medical issues and he really needed a commode in the bedroom but it was absolutely opposed to it and we actually found a commode that looks exactly like just a bedroom chair and the seat picks up and when you pick up the seat there's the commode and if he at some point doesn't need it you take that insert out and it's just a chair again that's cool but it took forever number one to convince him you know this was a possible solution but then once he saw it and decided the unfortunate thing is it has to come from england so it's expensive [Music] figured the british will know this is the proper thing for this to look like in the bedroom you know it does not have to look like a medical device that's awesome he would not permit anything it looked like and i can't blame him you know he said i want company to come over i don't want to see that my mom when she was toward the end of her time lost the track of was it day or night and we actually found a talking alarm clock on amazon it was not expensive at all and when it spoke it would say it's three o'clock it's dawn it would let her know what time of day but it also whether it was dawn afternoon evening and that helped her so much get oriented to oh okay we thought it was amazing yeah there's so much out there and like i said earlier on amazon some things you can get really inexpensively this was like probably maybe 29 bucks it really wasn't expensive at all yeah the other place that we've used within networks so much is maxi aids m-a-x-i hyphen a-i-d-s dot com they were originally started a company to help people who were blind with various accommodating devices but they really spread it out and it's like aarp really sponsors them and everything else it's amazing prices amazing collection of stuff maxiades.com with a hyphen in she also didn't want a hospital bed but she really needed an adjustable bed and we found an insert that was inflatable and had a remote control on amazon wow how did it work diane it worked wonderfully what it was you plugged it in and it was laying flat under that first quarter or third of the bed and she would put the remote on and it would inflate up to where she wanted it and she could deflate it and i was like okay you want an adjustable bed but she didn't want an adjustable bed and she definitely didn't want a hospital bed and that was like wonderful for her wow i didn't even know that that's your existed me neither that's super cool yeah and so much less expensive than an adjustable bed it's almost less expensive and when we were done with it there's a place in langhorne by where i live that saint mary's hospital or something runs and you can donate your equipment and they sell it at such a reduced cost to people who have a need and can't afford it that's even better that's awesome oh we donated all that stuff but that was just such a wonderful thing for her to have and it wasn't a thousand dollar adjustable bed and it wasn't a hospital bed what's in the chat inexpensive battery operated lights nightstand with a drawer to keep important items sometimes keeping items on the floor near the bed maybe we could decorate a commode there you go chris and then you said your phone has different alarms and you use different alarms for different things that's cool one thing that i started to do in our home and i have them in the bedroom is to switch out our outlets to usb outlets so that when we're powering up our devices we don't always have to say darn where's a block to plug it in we just plug it right into the usb in the wall that's helpful and there's all kinds of adaptations if you don't want to mess with electricity you can easily just go buy a multi-pronged device i have one in the office here now too that has usbs on it so you can do that inexpensively how many people have like really high shelves that you can't get to in your closets in your bedroom just having stools around to be able to access things on high shelves in our closets in our bedroom or for people who are using a wheelchair having adjustable levers on some of their poles in their closets there's different types of companies out there that can create closet organizers for you i'm sure they're all different pricing of course but they're handy or just having different types of polls available just like they have in the stores to lift garments down off of high shelves and on racks those kind of things are inexpensive as well nancy joe i see you use your cell phone for lots of different things i think most people use their cell phone it's plugged in somewhere near them right we're using it for different purposes at night it could be to help us to go to sleep and to listen to music our alarms it could be an app on relaxation and i still have my alexa i know some people either love alexa or hater or google home or the whole smart home technology that can help you but it can be really convenient it's a great way to wake up in the morning you know to nice music drifting into your room that's kind of cool for my mom's apartment we did the extended light switches they're light switch extenders i found them through maxi aids actually she was convinced that she needed a nursing home and i was furious so she went to a nursing home did not work out at all all the staff was telling her she did not be there and we were finally able to convince others that she could live in an apartment and have neighbor help out and some other help come in and all of that we adapted her entire apartment for less than 500 with all kinds of accommodations and stuff and one of the things i found that were i think 3.99 if i'm not mistaken were these light switch extenders and they were like clear plastic i guess about eight inches long maybe narrow thing that you would take like a switch plate cover off and you would put it on and then you would put the switch plate cover on top of it and it then extended downwards and so rather than lowering all the light switches it just made them lower for her because she was very short and she had really bad osteoporosis so she was really hunched over and then we put a strip of red electrical tape on it because that was the marker for anything that she needed to grab hold of or step over anything was red electrical tape because she could see that that was noticeable so this way she was able to operate all the lights in her place that were wall switches very very easily and we made a lot of the lamps light switches just so that she could do that with these extenders it's very very cheap very very easy and we weren't changing anything within the apartment that we would have to undo later i think i've seen some of those in storage at networks that we've had those floating around we had them as part of our at library at networks yeah remember that and in relation to someone who has some visual access needs thinking about color contrast too the paint and the furniture and really thinking about it even though that monochrome look might look cool it might not work well for everyone right that foreground background so things stand out yeah and so people need to access yeah yeah and the decor and you know how they're accessing better light switches on the walls but also if you have a table lamp and how a person can access that is it through smart technology connecting it to an app or some other device and thinking a little bit more higher tech so that they can operate on their own the switches and things or even just a touch lamp you know they're readily available now and actually work pretty decent in the early days it did not work well but they work pretty well now yeah remember the good old clap on clap off that was the beginning right how many years ago and we thought that was like amazing back in the day they still sell those i don't know i have that commercial in my head thank you michelle i do too the clapper yep and thinking about too the flooring like a high pile rug versus a low pile versus tile or wood flooring yeah hard floor whatever works for a person knowing that you can slip yeah you know and how a wheelchair might access you know across the floor or get stuck or all those things or things to think about so i i have a few pictures to share just some extra things ceiling lifts are so important for people who really need help to get in and out of bed and maybe they're living with a loved one who is getting a little older or isn't able to physically support them these are really valuable for those who need them and there are so many different kinds out there i did a search and there's many companies that offer these but you can get things on amazon but i think with this type of technology it's good to go with someone who knows what they're doing and installation it has to be right you really need to get the right people in a house to make sure that you have it on the right kind of load bearing walls and ceilings to make sure that it's structurally sound to do so so this doesn't require some additional help christian you mentioned barbecue tongs yeah to reach things absolutely and they're so easy because you can even buy those at the dollar store if you had to right there's some things that we can get there oh and they do sell the clapper nancy joe you shared a few photos so i added them in but clear pathways we mentioned this it's really important and i see you do have a low shaggish carpet right that's easy to maneuver so you don't trip but just a clear pathway and not having clutter on your floors too is a big deal i don't know how many of us are guilty of that but making sure that before you go to bed at night that you put things aside so that you don't trip on them when you go to bed because accidents happen at night my girlfriend got a concussion because she tripped over something in her room and woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and ended up in the er it could happen to anybody if she was in the way and she tripped and didn't see it and hurt herself so just something to think about clear your pathway before you go to bed for me it's where's the dog if i have to get up in the middle of the night you can easily trip over a black dog when you're sleeping at night i always tell mine wag your tail or something yeah it's a real thing the dogs you know they're in the way and this is the projection alarm clock that tracy mentioned that i have as well it's a fun toy and it's inexpensive i think it's 20 something dollars for this as well on amazon and i just searched for it just looking like i wonder if there is something i bet there is i didn't even know it existed and there it was so i just ordered it because i found myself squinting at my clock thinking this isn't good i don't want to put my glasses on to see what time it is you know my eyes are not like they used to be and this just works perfectly and then bethany you had mentioned that you have a sunshine alarm clock and that's a really cool feature so there's a few of them that i was very quickly able to find on amazon does anyone else have one of these they're pretty cool no but i'd like it and i've also seen they have moon more eyes ones too oh that's neat so the the moon will kind of put you to sleep at night you can set it for like a half hour and then the morning will wake you up in the morning and then i love this it's like the soft white light for night and then like the more yellow light to wake you up in the morning oh i have to check this out i love this that's cool looks like we're going to be on amazon or searching the web for some things right after this jeff bezos is thanking us and then you know the smart home technology whatever you use there's a few big ones out there but it can be helpful to help you to fall asleep set your timer your alarms to play music to wake you up in the morning and you can ask alexa and google and other things to do other things for you you can have programmable shades now you know so that you don't have to get out of bed hit a button and your shades will open or close and that's helpful so lots of things you can do this is a whole other series and it sounds like networks is going to do something around smart home technology next year so more to come on that that'll be fun and then there's the whole world of mounts so many kinds of mounts out there but the one i have here in a couple of photos you can see the positioning of someone with an ipad perhaps laying in bed and they're not able to hold it or they prefer not to hold it and the angle of it you can move it around and access things i think this is pretty cool too if you don't want a television in your bedroom and you want to watch a show before bed or something just swing it around and then you have like a screen right there that you can move and adjust the distance from your face and all that that's kind of cool but mounts are good for so many different things and i mentioned grabbers and different items that you can purchase that can help you to either access shelving or bring shelving lower for people to access so you can see the picture i think this is interesting the guy in the left who's sitting in the wheelchair and he's got that grabber he's pulling down that lever so that he could access shirts hanging up so that's kind of some cool technology but the costs are going to range for sure some things you can get at lowe's in home depot and others you're talking going to simply closets and spending a fortune on them whatever your budget there's something out there for you lighting was mentioned these are a few photos that nancy joe shared that she uses but lighting's important and how you want to use that if you need that definitely helps light a path at night and shelf organizers i don't have these but they're pretty cool when you think about it my first reaction was oh this would be great for a dorm life right but for anybody who wants to have things close at hand things that you use every night maybe having a bedside table doesn't work best for you or maybe you have a lot of things that you like to be comfortable with at night as you snuggle in and you can keep things organized so these types of devices put them on your walls can be really helpful to stay organized and find things there's also some that i've seen that they overlap on your bed i've seen them for living room too it's fabric and it laps over the arm of your chair or your sofa the same concept for your bed rail depends on the bed design you have but you could put things inside there so you don't lose them how many people lose the remote where did it fall and then you can find it any other thoughts anything that you all want to brainstorm or any situations for yourself for people that are in your life people that you work with that you say oh that might be something to share and ask about i was thinking of that person who's like the really really active sleeper and moves around a lot and is at risk for falling out of bed and maybe doesn't want the side rails but they're really physically able to get up and down but they're just kind of not wanting that institutional look one of the catalogs i saw and it was almost like they might use in another country where it's like a bed that rolls out onto the floor and it's more like a really thick cushy pillowy matte type thing to sleep on so that they could sleep and not have to worry about that someone might have a movement disorder or they just might be a really active sleeper this just brought me back to my daughter in her dorm room in college and she was in a room with a roommate and they had the bunk beds and she was on the top and we had heard of someone who fell out and actually was seriously injured from falling out of her dorm room bed so then my husband is upset because here my daughter laura she's a freshman and this is kind of cute my husband's nickname for my daughter is gooby so he decided he was going to buy the gooby protector the gooby protector was i would call it a bed rail but it was kind of fun it was i forget i think it was blue it was fabric it wasn't metal and it kind of fit under the bed and lift it up it wasn't institutional looking it might have even been more of like a toddler bettish type of a thing i don't remember it's many years ago now but she used it for a while until she got comfortable then she was afraid what if i fall out she hadn't slept in bunk beds in years yeah the gooby protector so i forgot about the goopy protector that's very sweet but a great idea and yeah but they do have i didn't even think about that i bet they have all kinds of stuff that are toddler related or whatever that you could adapt or use her big thing was oh my gosh i'm not a kid dad and he's like but look at it you know and she looked at it online before he got it to make sure she said yes to it and she was like yeah okay that's cool that doesn't look weird so thinking about the person and the technology or whatever it is are they okay with that right one of the inexpensive adaptations that i give to parents in early intervention is if they're trying to move their child out of a crib and into a bed i'll tell them to put the crib mattress on the floor so it's near the floor and then get a pool noodle and put it under the sheet along the edge of the bed so that if they roll against it just gives them that little bit of feedback like oh there's something there and then they don't roll out so and it's just real inexpensive easy adaptation to do for a toddler pool noodles are great for so many things right i think they could work for a lot of people i think even down the middle maybe to separate people somebody who keeps encroaching on your side yeah yeah corners too little did the people know who invented those the many uses for pool noodles i've even heard of cutting them like to the length of a pillow and putting them in the pillow so that it's going right at your neck to just kind of give you a little bit of lift when you're laying on your side i tried using a towel when i needed that the towel just squished down and then the pool noodle was just the right height you know because if you think about the height between your shoulder and here and then it's in your pillow and you just put it in there it just gives you that little extra you're making me stretch my neck i'm gonna do that as soon as we get off here i'm cutting some pool noodles well and the dollar store has pool noodles very frequently i wish i could send you some we have many many many pool noodles here they probably multiply huh i think they do i think in the dark oh chris you said i remember playing star wars [Laughter] light saber right yeah my grandfather was swords and oh my gosh jess do you want to say something you have your hand raised i got a question then i need some help brainstorming one please oh there is someone i know is residing in a nursing home they are late 50s early 60s they've experienced a stroke on their left side they've repeatedly fallen out of bed causing various no significant injuries yet but lots of bumps and bruises and now being fearful of going to bed at night the nursing home will not put up bed rails because they say they are restrictive so their solution was to put those thick gymnastic wrestling bats on the floor and put the bed up against the wall but it smells leaves the other side exposed but they refuse to utilize bed rails because they say they are restricted i understand this if the doctor orders it i believe that it can be approved the other is what about pool noodles like tracy suggested but yes this is very common that they put the big wrestling mats down below and back it to a wall yeah and sometimes i'll even lower the bed all the way down could they try the chair trick there putting the chair up against the bed like rosa had mentioned for her mom i suggested that that's restricted because they're not able to physically move the chair themselves out of the way so with a lot of i don't know this nursing home or assisted living or whatever but a lot of them use this as criterion for moving someone to more i'll just say it more expensive and more careful staffing shall we say if the person is okay with it i would offer to be present with them for their next life support meeting and bring it up and or talk to the nursing home administrator or the head nurse we need to do something what are we going to do falling onto a mat is not the answer i have a difficult time viewing something as being restrictive if they can still get out of the bed a bed rail they can't get out of the bed because the bed rails up and they can't put it down but if you put a chair there that's there to help them get out of bed and also give them that barrier to know that they're at the edge of the bed for licensure if they put it there it's restricted if the person puts it there then it's not but that's a licensure issue and they've gotten so much stricter with nursing homes and things like that because of they need to it's usually deemed that anything that the staff do if it theoretically restricts movement then it is a restrictive procedure and they can only do that with a doctor's order or with just like in many situations only with peer review or something like that a full plan that's why i would take it back to the nursing staff under the nursing home administrator and with uh what are we going to do here i understand your position but what are we going to do thank you yeah sorry jess i'm just noticing that we all have very different ideas of what we need to be comfortable at night and to have accessibility so pops in my mind is just a reminder that any modifications that we use for ourselves or others are very individualized and should be really focusing on that person and not so if it works for me then it must work for you now we have to really look at what do they want to be able to do during the night how it helps with safety and ease of movement and have it be very individualized so that we can be safe tonight when we go to bed we're going to be looking around our rooms we're on amazon before bed it's like let me check that out right and you know all these things that we've talked about today and we talked about the kitchen and the bathroom and the living room they're all things that we're doing to make our life easier now but they're all things that are going to help us be able to stay where we are for as long as we can so it makes our life easy now we'll hopefully help keep making our life easy so that we can age in place because we look at adaptations as being across the continuum and i know rosa a lot of your examples came from your mom to help her to be able to age in place and a lot of the things that we're doing for ourselves individually are helping us to be able to be comfortable and stay in place absolutely something to think about too as we all age where's our bedroom what floors it on that's a big one dealing with stairs can we alleviate that not have stairs do we live in a one-floor place we picked our house when we moved i had had neck surgery and doris had had a situation where she broke her leg and it was just like you know what if we're looking for a house we have learned there are things that happen let's look for one floor yep me too i know that's something i'm considering right now as i'm starting house hunting is like there has to be a bedroom on the first floor there has to be yeah it's an important consideration that not everybody thinks about and a bathroom available right yeah that's accessible yeah you have to have the bathroom on the first floor too you are thinking about a home for someone or an apartment for someone we just moved my brother out of a third floor apartment after a stroke and we looked for a place that would be accessible for him lots of things to consider but there's so many options out there now chris i see you put in the chat i remember watching a video with a lot of expensive houses and not liking them because there were too many steps yeah definitely something to consider just a few resources and this is just a few there are so many resources out there you know i didn't add maxi aids on here but that's definitely a good one lots of articles that you can read about how to redesign pinterest is a fabulous place just get ideas you can see specific companies that have pinterest accounts but just looking to see design ideas and then see how could i make this inexpensively where can i buy supplies who could i get to do something like this for me lots of really cool ideas from low tech to high tech and everything in the middle and in between cool things that are available out there well thank you all for attending today in the fourth of our series of accessibility think-a-thon so thanks everyone thank you all thank you everybody see you bye [Music] you

2022-08-15

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