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Shower chair

While progress has been made to ease the difficulties that face ambulatory impaired persons through legislation and public building codes providing for handicap access to essential facilities, there exist numerous situations that require devices and methods that will assist ambulatory impaired persons in accomplishing daily tasks. It is difficult for persons with temporary or permanent physical disabilities to get into, get out of, and bathe in a bath enclosure, such as a bathtub or shower. For example, a disabled person may risk injury due to tripping, slipping, or falling while entering or leaving a bathtub or shower. Moreover, once in the bathtub or shower, a disabled person may have difficulty changing position and manipulating bathtub or shower controls. The danger of mixing water with ambulatory impairment provides ripe opportunity for slipping and falling in a bathtub or shower. Furthermore, something as common as a tub wall that is easily stepped over or traversed by a fully ambulatory person becomes an immense obstacle and hurdle for the ambulatory impaired. Physically disabled persons often require assistance in using bathroom facilities such as the toilet and the shower. There is a variety of equipment available to assist with such bathroom needs. Examples of such devices include chairs that slide on rails to help move non-ambulatory persons into a standard residential bathtub, transfer benches that allow a person to sit in a bathtub and bathing chairs having conduits disposed within the seat and back member for channeling water through. However, many devices have limited utility beyond providing a seating function making such devices relatively less versatile. Shower chairs or seats permit the user to be seated, rather than standing, while taking a shower or while coloring or conditioning one's hair while showering.

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