Now in its natural habitat!
I have a dear friend who has to endure dialysis three times a week. This sucks on many levels. One injurious indignity involves a theoretically-padded chair that is just on the more-padded side of a cheapass emergency-room waiting room metal bench. No one should have to spend ten minutes in this chair, let alone four hours tethered to it and a hemodialysis machine.
I know, because I sat in one of them for fifteen minutes, to judge where the flaws were.
It’s harder than a padded chair should be. It reeks of chlorine and vinegar used to clean it after each patient. The whole chair comes apart like an exploding diagram (again, for cleaning), so that makes it shift and wobble slightly under the patient. And it’s slippery, so the patient ends up straining to keep from sliding down the seat (even when the footrest is raised.)
Alleviation Test #1: a length of non-skid carpet runner about 60×20″, with a canvas top sewn with nylon strapping and velcro. In theory, this would at least prevent slippage, while some chair pads and a pillows made it more comfy.
Flaw: it wasn’t padded enough. While it prevented the patient from sliding down the chair, it was ultimately too fragile and started shedding bits of itself all over the clinic floor.
Alleviation Test #2: a $4 new yoga mat and a $4 flannel sheet from Goodwill, plus some polyester quilt batting.
Yoga mat got cut down to 60×20″. Flannel sheet got trimmed to approximately 63×64″, then folded into thirds so I could sandwich the batting between two 21′ layers of flannel. After quilting that into place, I brought the other 63×21″ flannel piece around to the front and sewed it all into a giant envelope. NOTE: leave envelope open at top, for yoga mat!
After turning it right side out to hide the seams, I stitched the velcro and strap closure from attempt #1 across the front (padded) top. Then wrestled the yoga mat piece inside.
On the chair, the velcro strap clamps hard across the top of the chair. There’s a knob on the back of the chair that prevents the strap from sliding down. The pad drapes down the front, seat, and part of the footrest. A nice thick neck pillow and a warm blanket rounds out the gear, which can be carried easily in a duffle bag.
The flannel envelope has the added benefit of being easily washable, sparing the patient’s clothing from picking up too many chlorine fumes.
The next thing I do to it will be to paint vertical stripes of non-skid rubbery paint on the bottom layer of the flannel envelope. This should improve its non-skid properties even more (though the flannel is already pretty ‘grippy’ and the velcro strap holds the top.)
It’s not that pretty, being sewn for quickly deployed comfort rather than looks. I took a nap on it, over a hard floor.
The patient approves mightily, and says it made the chair better. The clinic staff wanted to know if I would be making and selling these. Um, no. One was enough, and I don’t have the time to contract out for patents and investors.
But I’ll be happy to expand this post into a full how-to with diagrams and better pics, at some point.