New OT-led guidance to help healthcare professionals assess and specify the right equipment for clients

To help professionals involved in the provision of toilet adaptation equipment efficiently assess and specify the most appropriate solution, Closomat has commissioned an occupational therapy-led guidance document.

Closomat’s guidance – ‘Single Handed Care: Toilet Guidance for Professionals’ – applies the PEO (Person Environment Occupation) model to address how to change the environment from disabling to enabling. It tabulates how use of appropriate technology, such as hoists to wash & dry toilets, can reduce, or potentially eliminate, the need for care intervention.

Single-handed care options are widening, says Closomat, with advances in technology balanced alongside care budgets, outcomes advised by healthcare professionals, and the desires of the client.

With regards to toileting, such technology not only enables single-handed care to be achieved in reducing care support to one person, it can go as far as empowering the client to address their intimate care single-handedly, without any support or care intervention, Closomat adds.

Robin Tuffley, Closomat Marketing Manager, explains: “On average we go to the toilet eight times a day. It is one of the five key ADL (activities of daily living) criteria. Choice of appropriate equipment can make a huge difference in enabling someone to deal with a very intimate activity with little- or no- help from another person, be it a family member or care worker.

“Our guidance aims at providing an easy to use tool for anyone involved in delivery of care packages- in domestic or residential care environments- to get the best practical solution, balancing cost of care and the client’s health & wellbeing.”

The guidance is available for free download from Closomat’s website under the ‘resources’ section.

Closomat is a leading provider of enabling toilet solutions. Its Palma Vita wash & dry toilet is unique in the sense that it was developed specifically for disabled people, and is the only wash & dry toilet that can be accessorised retrospectively to address changing circumstances.