Handicap Bathroom Accessories

Handicap bathroom accessories form the part of your handicap bathroom design that puts the finishing touches on the whole. There are many to choose from and all have their various uses and add their own special extra features to a handicapped bathroom. Some of the main features of these handicap bathroom extras are explained later in this article, while their uses and benefits are also revealed.

While a well designed handicap bathroom will function adequately without certain accessories, it all depends upon whether you want a bathroom to be a mere functional room, or you want it to be a place that you will enjoy using time and time again, as quite frankly, the bathroom is probably the most used room in the house!

Where Are Handicap Bathrooms Needed?

These days, most public buildings are required to provide facilities for the physically challenged which are specifically manufactured to meet all ADA (American with Disabilities Act) specifications. These include hotels, assisted living, schools, other public housing and hospitals, health centers, clinics and nursing homes. These are just a few examples of some of the many types of public services and entities which must provide bath facilities that are easily accessible and usable by the physically disabled.

These specially adapted facilities should always contain at the very least a handicap toilet and a sink with specially made faucet that is easy to open and close. Also useful are handicap showers, which are a welcome addition to any disabled bathroom facility, as long as they enable wheelchair access and have the proper hand rails fitted to enable users to get in and out safely.

Of course in your own home you will also require full accessibility in your own bathroom for the general use and functionality as well as your own comfort and peace of mind. How you have the design layout of your own handicapped bathrooms is of course predominantly up to you, but should be calculated with the assistance of a professional designer versed in the knowledge of accessible bathrooms for people with disabilities.

Handicap Bathroom Accessories Available

Of the more important handicap bathroom accessories you can install as part of your own, personalized or unique handicapped bathroom design are grab rails. These are more correctly necessities than accessories, but come from most handicap stores or assisted living retail outlets as a much needed and used handicap bathroom accessory. They can be fitted in places where the user needs to transfer from a wheelchair, such as the toilet, bath or shower and are also useful in lifting and lowering for instance into a handicap bathtub. You can also get swing up grab bars which flip up for ease of use and come in a variety of sizes. All grab bars should be very strong and well fitted into a wall so that they will not pull out of the wall, even by a very heavy person.

For the handicap bathtub, you can get a great accessory in a powered bath lift chair that is battery powered and will lower you down to the bottom of your handicap bath tub for submersion into the water. It will then raise you back up to the top when you're done, without having to put any strain on your knees, arms, hips or shoulders.

For handicap shower stalls, you can get a variety of accessories such as the handicapped shower chair is a vitally important accessory because the user will often not be able to take a shower standing up, even with grab rails. It is therefore a huge advantage to have a handicap shower seat that is comfortable, strong, resilient and of course waterproof so that it will not corrode. You can get a collapsible water retainer to keep the water inside the shower stall and not flooding out all over the bathroom floor. They are usually made from neoprene rubber meaning they are very durable and can easily be run over with a wheelchair. A handheld shower head is a useful accessory for taking partial showers. You can get pressure mixing valves to regulate water flow and keep the temperature constant regardless of who is turning on or off faucets elsewhere in the home. A heavy duty shower curtain along with a sturdy curtain rail is another good way to keep the water inside the shower stall as well as providing privacy.

At the end of the day, you will have to decide for yourself which accessories you prefer to have in your own facility to make it a more pleasant and welcoming place for you to use as well as being functional and free from obstacles and dangers that would present themselves in such a room in your house as the bathroom.