This guest blog post is contributed by Boomerater, a free online resource for Baby Boomers helping you find everything from wealth planners to romantic getaways. Seniors for Living contributes its properties to Boomerater’s assisted living directory.

A new Q&A discussion from Boomerater’s forums appears here each Friday. In this week’s post, members share their advice about adding a stair lift.

Question: My mother is coming to live with us, but the only bedroom we have for her is on the second floor of our two-floor home. We are considering adding a stair lift. Any words of advice?

Reply #1: Installing a stair lift was a big help for us. When my father came to live with us, we actually thought about adding a first-floor bedroom to the house. When we learned how expensive that option would be we looked into adding a stair lift. We decided on the Harmar Pinnacle. It was a great decision. Dad had no trouble operating it, and it took up less space in the stairway than we had anticipated.

Reply #2: Hire a CAPS-certified contractor to review your home for accessibility; they have great ideas and can look at your home with a critical eye for safety. You may need to modify doorways for a wheelchair for the future, and a main floor bathroom. The most important thing to remember when modifying for a lift is that you need a good fire escape route. If the power is out, how will you get your mother safely out the door? You can have the house wiring modified to have an always-on generator that backs up your primary system.

These are things that your CAPS certified contractor is trained to review your home for. Every home is different, and that’s their specialty — making homes safe and prepared for people to age in place adapting homes to the changing needs of family members utilizing principals of universal design.

Reply #3: I would advise also thinking about preparing an accessible bathroom and a zero step entrance into the home, because it sounds like she’s declining and she could use the extra attention to safety!

Add your own comments or find out what others had to say about adding a stair lift on Boomerater.com.