Shower Grab Bar Success

Bathroom safety is one of the most important things for an elderly person living in their home, as the multiple slippery surfaces and stepping required makes for a potentially dangerous situation. Falls are one of the biggest dangers to older adults, with many hospitalizations and deaths sadly caused by them every year. And for many seniors, injuries from a nasty fall can be the beginning of a physical decline that leads to a reduced quality of life and lifespan. Fortunately, there’s a simple addition to every bathroom that is inexpensive, easy to install, and can do wonders to prevent slips, trips, and other falls, known as a grab bar. In this post, you’ll find handy tips and guidelines for maximizing the safety that shower grab bars can provide.

While there is no standard height for a shower grab bar, in Americans with Disabilities Act compliant bathrooms, grab bars are installed 33 to 36 inches off the finished floor. While bars are typically installed horizontally, parallel to the floor, to allow for maximum support, bars can also be installed vertically or at an angle. Vertical bars can be helpful at the entrances to showers to provide support when stepping in and out, and angled ones can assist with lowering and raising oneself out of seats. It can be helpful, when installing grab bars for your loved one, to have them enter the bathroom and show how they typically use each part of the bathroom. Take note of where their hands and arms naturally sit and can move to, and use that as a guideline for installing them.

Grab bars should cover as much of the lower surface of the shower as possible. On a large shower, consider installing at least one on all the walls, so there’s always one within reach. For maximum strength, grab bars need to be installed mounted in the wall studs. In most walls, studs will be either 16 or 24 inches on center, that is to say the centers of each 2 by 4 wall stud will be either 16 or 24 inches apart. Use a stud finder to locate one stud and then the others, marking locations to make installing easy. Use 2 inch long screws to make sure you have a deep enough penetration into the wall studs.

Once installed, give the bars a yank test. That is, pull strongly and sharply on each bar, to make sure they’re not loose, wiggly, or improperly mounted and come clean off the wall. You need to make sure that when the bar is needed, it won’t fail under pressure.

For additional safety, consider replacing the towel racks with grab bars. Most towel racks can’t hold much more than the weight of a towel, so in a crisis situation they’re liable to cause further injury when grabbed, instead of helping at all. A grab bar can easily have towels hanging off it, so why not swap them out for that much more security? Additionally, for those with trouble rising from a seated position, grab bars that also function as toilet paper holders can be installed next to the toilet.