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| Before I talk about our Vacuum Tube Elevator, a residential elevator we use daily, I'd like to look at some of the facts about serious physical problems that limit mobility and accessibility for the disabled. Nearly 15 million US adults live with severe joint pain from arthritis. Some have problems with door opening as well as door handle gripping. At least 5 million Americans have fibromyalgia. Again, some have problems with door opening as well as door handle gripping. More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. Some types of pain restrict abilities like door opening. 31 million Americans experience low-back pain at any given time, and it is the single leading cause of disability. Getting older increases the risk of serious back issues. The lower back is the most stressed part of the body in opening the door of our elevator. Trust us—opening the door of our elevator is no picnic when a back with collapsed and herniated discs is involved. 31 percent of U.S. adults have some sort of neck or back condition that causes them pain, 26 percent have some sort of leg or knee condition and 18 percent have another condition that causes chronic pain. The typical American worker has a 50 percent chance of suffering a serious back injury over the course of his life. The number of American adults with any physical functioning difficulty is 36.2 million. Mobility is the most common disability among older Americans. Roughly 30.6 million of us have difficulty walking or climbing stairs, or use a wheelchair, cane, crutches or walker. Those that cannot use these things must either get carried or use an elevator. A stairlift would not work in our house because Baghead cannot sit—at all. About 56.7 million people — 19 percent of the population — had a disability in 2010, according to a broad definition of disability, with more than half of them — 29 million — reporting the disability was severe. The probability of having a severe disability is one in four for those 65 to 69. About 19.9 million people have difficulty lifting and grasping. This includes, for instance, trouble lifting an object like a bag of groceries, or grasping a glass or a pencil or elevator door handle. Because the U.S. population is aging, the use of assistive devices by people with mobility impairments is of increasing importance. While 1.4 million Americans live in nursing homes, a whopping 2 million Americans are homebound and cannot leave home, mostly due to physical disabilities. Home elevators assist elderly or physically challenged individuals and infuse in them a remarkable spirit of self confidence as long as the elevator design takes into consideration the likely limitations of this group. Accessibility is key. As mentioned, 1/4 of the fast-growing population of elderly Americans have severe disabilities many of which center on bad backs, mobility issues, and lifting and grasping issues. A difficult-to-open door is an extreme frustration for the elderly or physically challenged who need an elevator for greater idependence. Few elderly disabled veterans—like Baghead—are innovative enough to invent and build the type of accessibility device needed to deal with a difficult-to-open door, so they would be forced to have a person help them with door opening at both ends of the ride. We've ridden on dozens of elevators in our lives, but never one with a difficult-to-open door. We suggest they redesign the door, with more emphasis on the needs of the likely customer. After all, the most likely people to need an elevator are also the least likely people to be able to open a difficult-to-open door without serious pain! The Vacuum Tube Elevator PVE30 we bought has a 30-inch diameter outside and a 20-inch inside diameter. Being able to see in all directions is wonderful—this was accomplished by having an outer transparent cylinder with an inner transparent cylinder as the car you ride in. The safety features are excellent, and you won't find a more attractive elevator anywhere. Most elevators detract from the looks of a home. This elevator BEAUTiFIES a home! And it increases the value of your home. There is a phone in the elevator in case of emergency. This is a good safety feature but it is so low that Baghead kept ramming his shoulder into it. Additionally, bonking the phone on the way out the door always knocked the receiver off the hook. So we've decided to mount the phone higher up but without any drilling or epoxy or superglue—we're just going to use a masonite offset board that we will fasten using the screws that were already being used to hold the phone against the wall in the elevator. We suggest they redesign the phone mount so it can mount as is or mount at least 6 inches higher than currently. We are grateful to the Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators people for making an elevator that fit our space constraints and we are grateful to All In One Mobility for installing it in our house. Now that Baghead is happily using his door opening ratchet, our ambivalence about our elevator has disappeared—we LOVE it! |