Medical & Mobility

Mobility aids against the equipment that stays in the house:

one kind goes out of the door with the person, the other never leaves the bedroom or the bathroom. Mobility aids run from the transport chair that someone else pushes to the rollator with a seat for a slow walk to the corner shop, with crutches and canes for the last stretch of a recovery. Home medical equipment is what makes a house workable for someone who spends most of the day in it: a hospital-type bed with side rails, a shower chair, a commode beside the bed, a pressure-relief mattress. The nutrition shakes that often come home with a hospital discharge sit under supplements.

Renting, buying new or buying second-hand, by how long the need lasts:

a recovery measured in weeks, after a fracture or a hip or knee operation, points to renting or to a used piece that can be sold on afterwards. A need with no end date changes the sums. Buying outright wins, and it becomes worth paying for what makes daily use easier: a lighter aluminium frame that goes into the car boot every morning, a padded seat, an electric bed instead of one with hand cranks. Powered equipment raises the stakes either way, because a motor, a battery or a handset can fail and spares are not always easy to find. Whatever the timeline, measure the doorways, the bathroom and the car before choosing anything, since a standard chair that will not clear the bathroom door is little use at home.

Wheelchair and bed rental set against the price of buying:

a basic folding steel wheelchair costs around ₡90,000 new and a lighter aluminium one roughly twice that. Medical-supply businesses rent chairs by the month with maintenance included, and a hospital-type bed goes for around ₡45,000 a month, usually with the mattress and rails. For a recovery of a few weeks, that rent rather than the shop price is the figure a used chair or bed has to beat. For a long one the rent never stops, which is where a pre-owned bed pays for itself, and a chair bought outright can still be sold on when nobody needs it.

A second-hand wheelchair or bed, tested before money changes hands:

anything with brakes or locks should hold on a slope with weight on it, and anything that folds or adjusts should go through its whole range a couple of times without sticking. Powered equipment has to run in front of you, on its own charger or handset, all the way up and down rather than just switched on. Count the parts, because a missing footrest, a bed without its rails or a chair without its cushion all cost money to replace. Find the label with the weight limit, and if it has gone, ask more questions. Mattresses, seat cushions and anything else that sat against the skin show their history in stains and smells, and shower chairs and commodes should arrive clean.

Passing on a chair or bed once the recovery is over:

much of this equipment changes hands nearly new, because it was only needed while someone got back on their feet. Say what it is, how long it was used and why it is going, give the weight limit and the folded or dismantled size, and photograph the label, the brakes and every moving part, with the charger or handset in the picture if it has one. Disinfect anything that went near a bathroom and say that you did. Families buy against a discharge date, so put when it can be collected next to where: someone driving in from Nicoya or Naranjo with a parent due home at the end of the week needs to know it can go that week, and whether the bed comes apart small enough for a pickup.