The $10,000 Grab Bar: Why Your Home Safety Plan Needs an Occupational Therapist, Not a Contractor

Installing safety rails won't keep your parents out of the ER if they are mounted at the wrong height for their specific gait.

Most people think retrofitting a home for an aging parent is a quick trip to the hardware store for some grab bars and a plastic shower chair. Then they spend $8,000 on a walk-in tub that their mother refuses to use because it takes ten minutes to drain while she sits there shivering. The missing link isn't the hardware; it's human biomechanics. An occupational therapist doesn't look at your house to see what's broken; they look at how your parent moves through space to stop the one fall that changes everything.

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