Adding an indoor stair lift to your home can allow you to enjoy a high degree of mobility. If you've had trouble in the past with navigating the stairs, being able to sit on a stair lift and glide from one floor to another will be a welcome change to your life. When you contact a local medical equipment supplier to discuss this addition to your home, you'll need to evaluate the many models of stair lifts that offer different features. When it comes to the seat itself, some models have a swivel seat — a seat that pivots when you want to sit down on it or stand up from it. Here's why a swivel seat is a valuable feature.

It Makes Using The Device Easier

The presence of a stair lift in your home is all about making it easier to get up and down the stairs, and having a swivel seat on this device will improve the ease with which you use the device. If you were to try to get on a model without a swivel seat, you might find that it's difficult or uncomfortable to position your body so that you can easily sit down onto the seat. This can especially be true when the stair lift is at the bottom of the stairs, as the bottom stair itself may get in the way of your feet. Being able to rotate the seat means that you're able to easily lower your body onto it without interference from the bottom stair.

It Improves Safety

A swivel seat doesn't just make using your stair lift easier — it also promotes safety. This is especially true when you're at the top of the stairs. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, you can swivel the seat so that your feet aren't near the edge of the top step when you're ready to stand up. Without a swivel seat, you'd be getting up off the seat with your feet precariously close to the top stair — a position in which there's a risk of you falling.

Types Of Swivel Seats

When you evaluate different models of stair lifts, you'll generally find that there are two types of swivel seats available. A manual swivel seat is a seat that you turn yourself. Generally, you lift a lever to unlock the seat and then rotate it. Some stair lifts have powered swivel seats. In this case, you simply press a button on the device's control panel and the seat will rotate on its own.

Visit a local medical equipment supplier to learn more about stair lifts.