Whether you’re recovering from an injury or you’re coming into the golden years of your life, there can be times when using a regular bed can be a challenge. You may even consider looking for hospital beds for rent.
You may have difficulty getting to your feet in the morning or your bed may not be comfortable for sleep anymore.
In these cases, having a home hospital bed can be a huge help. If you’re looking at getting a hospital bed for your home, you have two options: buying the bed or using a hospital bed rental.
Hospital bed rentals can seem like a good idea at first, but there are a lot of factors you need to consider. Read on to learn more about rental concerns and what you really need to know about your hospital bed.
- LINAK Electric Motor: Our professional home electric medical beds are equipped with top...
- 5 Upgraded Adjustable Features: in addition to the standard heights for head, knees and feet,...
- Easy and Lightweight Movement: High-strength, wear-resistant 360° swivel silent wheels with brakes...
- 3 Classic Functions. Back lift adjustment, knee lift adjustment, back knee lift operation at the...
- Our electric motor actuators and control systems offer smooth and quiet movements. Its intuitive...
- The entire bed can also be raised to 24 inches off the ground or lowered to 13 inches off the...
- ProHeal hospital beds are professional grade, designed for long-term patient care use in hospitals...
- This fully electric bed has an automatically adjustable height - low range: 15", high range: 23".
- Hospital bed with rails - Included is a pair of half rail safety guards for fall risk patients.
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Should You Get a Hospital Bed?
Before we dive into whether you should get a hospital bed, let’s take a look at what makes them special.
These beds have height-adjustable heads and feet and may often come with rails that can be raised and lowered. They are designed to help the elderly, infirm, or disabled patients get in and out of bed safely.
If you or a loved one have reached a point in your life where getting in and out of bed is a problem, having a hospital bed can be a great help.
You may have trouble sitting up to get out of bed. Or you may have a partner who you can no longer lift to their feet. Balance issues can also pose a risk of falls when you’re getting out of bed, an injury that causes the deaths of more than 645,000 people each year.
Hospital beds can also be a huge help for people who are bedridden. Laying in a regular bed all day every day can cause a host of problems like pressure wounds and decreased circulation. But the patient’s mental state may suffer as well since lying flat on your back makes it hard to do much at all.
Some hospital beds can also be helpful in treating certain conditions or injuries. We’ll get into specifics more in a moment, but there are special beds designed to help severe burn victims or patients with spinal injuries. These beds help keep them more comfortable and make caring for them much easier.
Ten Things You Should Know Before Getting Hospital Bed Rentals
Control Mechanisms
Most modern hospital beds are electric beds. The bed can be controlled by a remote with various buttons to raise and lower the head and foot of the bed, as well as the level of the entire bed itself. This can be helpful for caregivers or patients who may need help getting the patient into an upright position.
Gatch beds are the old-school cousin of electric beds, with everything on the bed being controlled by hand cranks. These are located at the foot of the bed and can be dropped under the bed frame when not in use to avoid any smacked shins. These beds require a caretaker who can bend down to use the cranks and the patient has no control over their bed position.
Specialized Beds
Low beds are ideal for patients who may be prone to fall out of bed even with side rails, such as in the case of seizure patients or sleepwalkers. They usually sit no more than two feet off the floor and they often do not come with an option to raise or lower the entire bed.
People using this bed will need to be able to stand up from a low position on the floor or will need a caregiver who can help them do so.
Low air loss beds are somewhat similar to an air mattress, with special inflated sacs throughout the mattress. They help to relieve some of the pressure of a person’s body weight pressing into a bed, which can be important in preventing pressure ulcers and bedsores. They can also be good for burn victims or skin graft patients whose skin needs a more gentle touch.
Circo electric beds are used for patients with severe burns or spinal injuries who cannot be moved in the usual ways. These beds allow you to reposition and turn the patient to keep their lungs and circulatory system working properly. If you or your loved one has such an injury, there are few substitutes for this type of hospital bed.
Clinitron beds are a higher-tech model of the low air loss beds. Instead of being filled with air, these beds are filled with a sand-like material through which warm air gets pumped. This maintains a constant temperature in the bed and helps relieve any developing pressure wounds.
Hospital Bed Rentals vs Purchase
If you’ve decided that you do need a hospital bed, you have a couple of options as to how to get one.
You can, of course, buy a hospital bed; your medical insurance may cover some of the purchase and you can get help from your doctor in buying one.
You can also rent a hospital bed if you don’t want to or can’t afford to buy one outright.
One of the most important questions you’ll need to ask when you’re deciding whether to rent or buy a hospital bed is how long you’ll need it.
If you’ll only need the bed for a few weeks or months while a patient recovers from an injury, renting may be cheaper. This affordable option can also work well for people who want to end their lives in their own homes and need medical support to do so.
