Rotating Beds encourage a person’s independence when getting into and out of bed. Not only are they useful to the person using it, but they take all the strain that’s normally endured by carers and loved ones. If you or your loved one finds entering and exiting their sleep space problematic, a rotating chair bed could be the answer you are looking for.
When getting into bed, the bed should be in a chair like position, facing the room to enable the easiest possible entry. Sit on the mattress in the same way you would a chair and get your back as close to the upright part of the mattress as possible.
The bed being demonstrated here is the Saturn Rotate Bed by Apollo Healthcare and on the Saturn range, the angle of the mattress platform tilts, making it even easier to sit on the mattress and get into bed.
Once sitting comfortably, it is then a “one button press” operation to fully rotate and then lay the bed down flat if that is your preferred sleeping position.
For a rotating bed to support you in getting out of bed, simply press and hold the rotate button to carry out the entire process. You can stop the bed from moving at any point by releasing the button but the smoothness of movement is such that you most likely won’t feel the need to do so.
As the bed rotates to face the part of the room that you exit your bed from, the back rest will raise and once the foot rest is clear of the edge of the bed, this will then lower so that your feet are close to or on the floor. At this point, if you continue to press the rotate button on the easy press handset, the mattress platform on the Lomond Rotating Bed, (as well as the Saturn range,) will tilt in the same way a riser recliner chair does, enabling you to exit the bed with ease.
The mattress platform height, as you’ve probably guessed, is the height from the floor to the mattress platform. It is important to note that it is not the height of the bed to the top of the mattress. Some rotating beds have profiling capabilities too (the height of the beds go up to waist height to enable on-bed care if required) and so here’s a list of the beds that we supply and their mattress platform height ranges:-
The RotoBed Home from Opera Beds is slightly different in that it does not raise and lower in height. There are 4 fixed positions depending on the measurement between the floor and the hollow of your knee and this is set at the installation stage and cannot be altered. Whichever height range your floor to knee height measurement falls into will determine the fixed height your bed will be set at during installation:-
Most rotating beds come in tha standard 3ft single width. The exception being Opera beds as they have some Wide Single 3ft 6″ options and even Super King 6ft Duals. It’s important to note that for a rotating chair bed to rotate, the bed will need to be away from any wall by a few inches so bear this in mind when assessing the space you have available.
All our rotating beds come with a pressure care mattress as standard. They all come with some sort of hand rail to stabilise you as the bed turns. Some come with full length side rails for added security while others have them as an optional extra or not at all. Rotobeds such as the Rotobed Free have excellent accessories such as a very clever bedside table, an LED reading lamp and even an underbed light which automatically activates when the bed rotates.
Should you require an alternating air mattress to accompany your rotating bed, you can choose the Roho Air Mattress with any 3ft wide Rotobed.
We strongly urge that you leave the installation of these beds to the experts. Mattress platforms on standard profiling beds generally come in 2 sections. Not so with their heavier big brother, Mr Rotator! The mattress platform is all in one piece and is extremely heavy and therefore difficult to manoeuvre around corners. This bed will ideally be installed on the ground floor in domestic dwellings.
There’s no sugarcoating it, rotating beds are expensive so investing in something that caters for your needs in the here and now, as well as having the functionality to meet your needs in the future, is where the smart money is at.
We have taken into account price, quality, features and functionality and the bed that we recommend over any other is the Lomond Rotating Bed from Alerta Medical. Packed full of features as standard, it offers excellent value for money compared to its rivals and has decent warranty periods. (A 3 year warranty on the frame and a 2 year on the motors and electrics.)
Its height range is only surpassed by that of the Rotobed Free but still with an impressive 40 -80 cm, this range will suffice for almost all people and their carers. The pressure care mattress that it comes with has a unique way of staying in place; although segmented, all parts remain attached to one another so slippage is not an issue. (The foam block at the foot of the bed isn’t attached as that remains in place as the bed turns. ) The hand control is an easy press, 1 button press operation to rotate into and out of bed. Hand rails and side rails are included which easily detach and reattach as required, it even comes with an overhead grab handle so you can position yourself with ease while you’re in bed.
The only gripe that we have with this bed is the fact that it will only rotate one way; to the right if you are lying in bed. Obviously the bed could be assembled so the head end is at the opposite end if you need it to rotate the other way but if you prefer to face a certain way in your room so you can look out of a window for instance, consider the Saturn as this can be set up so it rotates in either direction.
