“Angel Hands” Lift System
The St. Pete Times has a great article this morning about a prototype lift system called "Angel Hands" created by a local inventor in partnership with Custom Mobility (who have been providing my wheelchair for 25 yeas now).
I'm not sure how this system would work for me - it's hard to make out the physics in the video - but it is so nice to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with the traditional sling systems. They've come a long way from the Hoyer I used after my back surgery in 1989; you no longer have to sit on the sling all day long, and track systems make lifts more discrete and homes less institutional. I've been using a lift for about two years now, and while it's awesome (if slow) in the bathroom, for bed transfers I still get picked up the old-fashioned way 99% of the time. The Times video shows the manipulation required to get the sling out from under you when you're getting into bed, and that's bad enough, but the opposite -- getting the sling under you to get out of bed -- is next-to-impossible, especially if, like me, you have a Tempurpedic mattress. It's not entirely out of the question, but it's not easy on the lifter or the liftee, and there's plenty of room for injury.
I'm lucky that I'm small enough and my parents are still young enough that I can be lifted manually most of the time. But that won't always be the case, and it's awesome to know that there are smart and caring people aware of the pitfalls who are helping develop new and better medical tech.
St. Petersburg Times: Invention aims to lift bodies that can't lift themselves