Orthopedic chairs - Chairs for the aged

When it comes to special chairs designed for older people and their needs, we really are living in the golden age. Only a couple of decades ago the choice was limited to chairs with firm orthopedic backrests, high seats and almost vertical back supports.

You can of course still buy chairs like this, but there a lot more options that you can select from and many of these chairs are stylish and attractive as well as functional.

So what is available?

Well the high seat, high backed and almost vertical backrest chair is still going strong.

In the UK this type of chair was made famous by a company called Shackletons over three decades ago when it was called the “high seat chair”. Back then Shackletons had many TV advertising campaigns and their name became synonymous with this type of chair.

The high seat chair remains popular with the elderly for a number of reasons. Firstly, the higher than normal seat makes sitting down and standing up less physically demanding. Secondly, the angle and height of the backrest make this kind of chair orthopedically supportive and comfortable to sit on. Finally, chairs of this design were popular in retirement homes, doctors surgeries and many other environments frequented by older people and this made them a familiar sight.

The next generation of chair for the elderly

Whilst the high seat chair is far from dead, there are ways in which it, or what it does, have been improved upon or even superseded.

The big feature of the high seat chair's design was that it made getting up and sitting down easier, however the lift and tilt, or riser recliner, chair solves this problem in a very different way.

The riser recliner chair uses motors to physically move the seat and backrest sections of the chair up and down whilst adding a forwards or backwards tilt. The result is that this kind of chair lifts the person seated in it upwards whilst gently tilting their body and legs forwards. In other words it helps them into a standing posture. By reversing the chair's motions it can take someone from a standing to a seated position. The complete process only takes seconds and it is smooth and safe.

Aside from the effortless way in which this form of orthopedic chair works, it also has great flexibility in terms of final seating position. With many of these riser recliner chairs the person using it can vary their seated position from a very upright posture to a very reclined posture – or anywhere in between. They can also make small or large adjustments at the touch of a button and preset their favourite positions using the chair's remote control. This type of chair offers so much more flexibility than the high seat chair, however this versatility does come at a cost.

If you are interested in the riser recliner or lift and tilt style of chair, you may also find stairlift an interesting solution for safely getting up and down stairs.