Bathroom Renovations for Elderly

Top Bathroom Renovations for the Elderly 

One of the hardest parts of getting older is realising you may need to make lifestyle changes to accommodate your ageing. This can include physical and mental health challenges that may require changes to various parts of your life – including your diet, activity levels and even your physical space. 

Changes to the physical space may mean conducting extensive, expensive home renovations to allow for physical disabilities or degradation of motor functions as you age. Your balance, flexibility, grip strength, and more may be affected by ageing. One area of the home in which you can make meaningful changes to the space (that don’t have to be particularly expensive), can be the bathroom. Renovating the bathroom to suit your needs doesn’t have to be complicated, and the changes made don’t have to be permanent. 

Here are a few different bathroom renovation ideas for anyone wanting to grow old gracefully, or for those with ageing parents or other family members looking to conduct bathroom renovations in the Sydney region. 

Raising the Height of the Toilet Seat 

One of the most basic things you can do to help your elderly relative or parent is to raise the height of the toilet seat. This will mean that there is less strain on their hips, knees and other joints as they don’t have to lower themselves down so far to sit on the toilet. This can be done by either adding a removable plastic or foam toilet seat that offers a 1 – 3” rise on the seat. These are often attached by velcro. 

The other option is to purchase a new toilet that sits taller. While this is a more major bathroom renovation undertaking, you may find it a longer-term investment as you grow older, you can also remove and re-use the toilet in your home. Or, give it to another elderly friend or family member to use. 

Adding Grab Bars to Toilets 

Another standard-fare addition to bathroom renovations for the elderly is to add grab bars to either side of your toilet. These bars will allow the person to lift themselves up off the seat, rather than relying on their knees and hips to do the work for them. You’ll want to ensure that these bars are screwed into the walls of your bathroom and into a beam for necessary security. 

This is a fairly minor bathroom renovation, so you may or may not need to hire a professional company that does licensed bathroom renovations in Sydney, such as Crystal Bathrooms.  

Adding Grab Bars & A Shower Seat 

The shower is the next part of the bathroom where the elderly tend to struggle, mostly with maintaining their balance. This can be aided by adding grab bars into the shower – again, you’ll need to choose grab bars that are mounted into the wall itself, through the fibreglass or acrylic and into a stud for the best, most secure results. 

You can also find grab bars that are much cheaper that are suction-mounted with water – though these are less safe, as they lose their suction over time. 

Another helpful addition to the shower during the course of your bathroom renovation could be the addition of a shower seat. Now, you can buy a brand new shower that comes with a shower seat and a grab bar already installed – though, for those retrofitting their bathroom, you can find shower seats that are installed via screws and plates. These are the most secure seating for your elderly relative. 

Making the Bathroom Bigger 

Let’s say you have an elderly relative that’s actually coming to live with you, rather than just the occasional visitor. This person may (or may soon) be in a wheelchair, or need to use other mobility devices such as a walker. This may require that your bathroom be made larger than its current size.

For this, you’ll want to call upon the services of a professional bathroom renovation company. You may also need to make changes to the flooring in the bathroom to make it all-on-one-level with a walk-in shower, without your traditional bathtub addition, or a step. 

How Can Crystal Bathrooms Help? 

Crystal Bathrooms has been providing Sydney siders with the best in bathroom renovation services, and as family members with elderly relatives ourselves, we understand that with age comes challenges and offer a sensitive, kind, and professional approach to renovating your bathroom – or renovating a bathroom so that is is more accessible to your elderly friend or relative. Contact us today to see how we may help you with a bathroom renovation to make your bathroom better for everyone.