Custom made bathroom

Most bathrooms in a house or apartment are not suitable for a disabled person and adjustments or sometimes extensive work is required. Simple things such as light switches that can be reached at a comfortable height, make all the difference. A washbasin should have no cupboard beneath it, enabling anyone in a wheelchair to sit up close with ones knees tucked under the basin. Handrails by the toilet and in the shower area are an absolute MUST. If you can do away with shower doors along with their runners on the floor leaving the space entirely open with a flat floor surface - this is ideal. A built-in permanent seat can be created in the shower, or if circumstances require a simple plastic chair or bathroom wheelchair, will then comfortably fit in without any complicated manoeuvring. Even thinking about where you put the toilet roll holder is important, making sure it is in reach and one doesn't have to be a contortionist to reach the paper. Making everything easily accessible such as towels on rails that can be reached; shelves for shampoo etc. close at hand and footwear to slip on with ease after a shower may sound simple but are fundamental. All these things are important; not only does this give valuable additional independence to a disabled person in the bathroom, but relieves a little of the extensive help required from the caregiver. These suggestions are not only relevant to disability but to simply getting older, which try as we might, no one can avoid - so plan ahead.