In a 1920s house, the staircase decides everything. Strong male caregivers for the stairs, the transfers, and the walk out to the car.
The houses along Ponce de Leon, Springdale, and the streets around Fernbank are the reason people live here. They are also, from a mobility standpoint, a series of obstacles: a steep run of front steps from the sidewalk, a narrow staircase with a turn in it, and the only full bathroom upstairs.
Families tell us the same thing: he refuses to move, and honestly, the house is worth staying in. So the question is never whether to leave. It's how to make a ninety-year-old house work for a man who can't take stairs the way he used to.
Usually the answer is a ground-floor setup for daily life, plus a caregiver strong enough to handle the stairs and the front steps when they can't be avoided.
Often the hardest twenty seconds of the day, and the reason men stop leaving. A caregiver on the downhill side, one step at a time, with the car brought as close as the drive allows.
A turn at the landing and a handrail on only one side means standard technique doesn't apply. We work out the sequence before it's needed in a hurry.
Claw-foot tubs and small tiled rooms weren't built for two people and a shower chair. We adapt, or we move bathing to whatever downstairs option exists.
Turning a study or dining room into his bedroom is the single change that most often keeps a man in a Druid Hills house another few years.
Most men here are treated at Emory, minutes away, which means frequent appointments and short hospital stays. The recurring job is getting him from an upstairs bedroom to the car and back, several times a month. That's driving plus transfers, not driving alone: see transportation and post-surgery recovery care.
More on the service: lifting and mobility care, and home care in Druid Hills.
No, and nobody should. Carrying a grown man up a turning staircase is how both people get hurt. We assist him up under his own power where that's safe, and where it isn't, we move his daily life downstairs.
Understood. Caregivers work around antiques, rugs, and a floor plan that can't be rearranged freely. We suggest the smallest changes that make the day safe.
No. It starts at $28 an hour like everywhere we serve, going up depending on the case, with no travel fee. See what care costs.
The stairs, the bathroom, and where the car can park. That's the whole picture.
A friendly, no-pressure conversation.
(470) ELITE-4-MEN