On 1/31/2015 1:27 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Due to neurological issues, descending a staircase is becoming
increasingly problematic for Yours Truly.

Current strategy is going down sideways holding the railing, but a
collapsed knee could defeat that.

If I take a header, seems like the best outcome would be a quick
death... but the most likely outcome would be long term disability.

That being said....

Is anybody familiar with assistive devices to mitigate the risk?

A mini-elevator seems like overkill to me - and also a space-eating
PITA.

Ascending, no problem... worst case a bruised knee or something.

I'm starting to think in terms of some kind of quick-on-quick-off
harness attached to a spool whose speed of unwinding is governed.

You put slip the harness on around the chest, start going down the
stairs, start to take a header, and the inertial brake on the spool
kicks in reducing the header to something more like a straight-down
fall on to one's butt or knees.

Anybody been here?


Although a chairlift may seem to be overkill at this point, your words
are, "increasingly problematic" which leads me to infer that your
condition did not appear suddenly and has remained stable, but rather
that your condition is worse now than in the past. Not to be morbid
about it, but it seems reasonable that your problem is likely to
progress further. Therefore, sooner or later the chairlift is likely to
be needed to descend stairs at first, and possibly, even to ascend
stairs. As you say, a bad fall is likely to be catastrophic. Why take
a chance?