I showered standing up for most of my 74 years and never once thought about it. Then my right hip got replaced, and my physical therapist handed me a list of things to have waiting at home. A shower chair sat near the top of that list, and I grumbled about it the whole drive back to Tupelo.
My wife Doris ordered the Medline premium shower chair with the back and the padded armrests. Wade drove over from Saltillo, ran the legs down to the mark we picked, and tightened them. That was about 18 months ago. I have sat on that chair every single morning since, in the walk-in shower stall off our bedroom, and I have formed opinions. Here are ten reasons it earned its place and kept it. One word before I start: ask your doctor or physical therapist about fit and height before you buy anything, because that part is not one-size-fits-all.
The chair my physical therapist put on the list, still in my shower 18 months later
Aluminum frame, contoured back, padded rolled armrests, six height positions, slip-resistant rubber feet. Check the height range and the dimensions on the listing against your own stall before you decide.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →You sit down before your feet are fully awake
Mornings are the worst of it for me. Stiff hands, a stiff hip, and a first step that is not entirely trustworthy until I have been upright a minute or two. Standing in a wet shower while my balance is still catching up was the part of the day I liked least. Sitting down to wash takes that first wobble out of the routine. It does not fix anything. It is just one less place to be unsteady, and I have a grab bar beside it for the rest.
The contoured back gives you something to lean on instead of balance against
A chair with no back is a stool, and a stool in a wet shower asks you to hold yourself upright the entire time. This one has a contoured back that comes up high enough that I can settle against it and let it carry me while I soap my legs and feet. That is the difference between scrubbing with one hand and scrubbing with two. It also means I am not rushing, and rushing is what puts people on the floor.
Padded rolled armrests are really two handles for standing back up
I did not think I needed armrests. Then I tried standing up from a flat seat with nothing to push against, and I changed my mind in about four seconds. The rolled pads give me a grip at roughly the right height to push down and come up under control, which is the whole trick after a hip replacement. Padded matters too. Bare metal edges dig into your forearms when you lean on them every morning of your life.
Six height positions put the seat where your knees actually want it
Wade set mine in the first five minutes and I have not touched it since. The chair has six height positions and we landed at a 21 inch seat height, which is where my feet sit flat on the floor with my knees about level. That is the rule my physical therapist gave me: flat feet, knees level, no dangling and no folding up like a lawn chair. Get that right and standing up stops being a project. Get it wrong and the best chair in the catalog will fight you.
Slip-resistant rubber feet keep it where you put it
A wet shower floor is slick. A chair that slides while you are lowering yourself onto it is worse than no chair at all. The rubber feet on the straight legs grip and stay put, and the chair has not walked an inch on me. I still check them about once a month, because two years of a wet floor and a bar of soap will wear anything down eventually.
At about 7 pounds, I can lift it out with one hand to clean under it
You would not think weight matters much in a bathroom. It matters. The chair is about 7 pounds and aluminum, so I can pick it up out of the stall with one hand when Doris wants to scrub the floor. A heavier chair gets left sitting where it is, and a chair left sitting where it is grows a ring of soap scum around the legs that nobody in this house wants to deal with.
The 350 pound capacity means nothing flexes when you sit down
I am not a small man and I do not care for the feel of something giving underneath me. The listing capacity is 350 pounds, and mine does not creak, bow or rock when I sit. That sounds like a small thing until you have settled onto a flimsy seat in a wet room and felt it shift sideways. Trusting the furniture under you is most of the battle.
It fits a shower stall without eating the whole floor
Our main bathroom has a walk-in shower stall with a low lip, not a tub. The chair measures about 16.3 inches wide and 13.4 inches deep, so it sits in the corner with room left for me to stand and turn around. If your shower is tight, measure it before you order, because that is the one part of this you cannot adjust later with a wrench.
It turns a chore you dread into ten ordinary minutes
For a while there, showers were the thing I put off. Not because of pain, but because of the standing and the thinking ahead it took. Once the chair went in, the whole routine went back to being boring, and boring is exactly what I wanted out of a bathroom. Boring mornings are how I am still getting to Sunday church and to Wednesday coffee at the feed store with my old route buddies.
Aluminum does not rust, so there is nothing to keep an eye on
Everything in a shower rusts eventually. The frame on this one is aluminum and does not. Medline backs it with a one-year limited warranty, which is not forever, but there is precious little on the chair to fail. No motor, no moving parts, nothing to reprogram or recharge. It is a seat with four legs and a back, and it does that job every morning without being asked twice.
What I'd Skip
Two things. First, I would skip any shower seat without a back. A neighbor of mine uses a plain stool and it asks too much of your balance on a slick floor, especially in the morning. Second, I looked hard at a tub transfer bench before we ordered, and for our house it was the wrong tool. We have a shower stall with a low lip, so a bench built to straddle a tub rail would have been more furniture than the room needed. If you do have a tub you climb into, a bench is a good conversation to have with your physical therapist. It is not one to have with me.
It is a seat with four legs and a back. Eighteen months of daily showers and nothing on it has loosened, rusted or slid.
One less place to be unsteady, most mornings of the week
This is the Medline chair I have used every day since before my hip replacement. Check the six height positions and the footprint against your own stall, then ask your physical therapist where the seat should sit.
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