Raising The Bed and Protecting Your Back

The Hack: 

To reduce the strain on your back, add a second box spring to the bed so that the platform is raised. This made completing care and transferring my daughter in and out of bed easier and we (and the support workers) protected our backs from injury.

About the Solution Hacker: 

We came up with this solution mainly because we were performing incontinence care in my daughter’s bed one day and then she needed to be lifted out of the bed and into her wheelchair, we discovered that this was very hard on our backs because of how low the bed was.

‍We did not want to have a hospital bed in the home so we thought about other solutions that could help us and the support workers
protect our backs. With the addition of the second box spring, it raised the bed at a level that made transferring her in and out of bed
much quicker and safe for us. Because of my daughter’s condition, she was not moving around a lot on the bed so there was no risk of her rolling off the bed. What was also great about trying this was that we discovered that in adding an additional box spring, it gave my
daughter a better eyeline to make eye contact and interact with others easier on her.

Parent Home Hacks

Information published on this website is provided for information and educational purposes only. This website does not provide medical advice. Reference to or mention of specific products, processes or services do not constitute or imply a recommendation or endorsement by VHA Home HealthCare.