The IndeeLift Story: How a Son's Struggle Inspired a Global Solution

IndeeLift (which comes from the words "Independent" and "lift") was created by Steve Powell. This is his story:

"As the person responsible for caring for my elderly parents, I have had the opportunity to experience many of the challenges that come with aging. My parents, who live in different places, are an important part of my life and, as a result, I am involved in the medical and everyday challenges of aging at home.

My father faced many challenges in the last years of his life on earth. He was the typical older man who had worked hard all his life. He suffered from diabetes, dementia, kidney failure, and many other medical issues. He was very fortunate that his wife was an experienced nurse who managed his many medical problems with the greatest expertise.

A solution to my father's health problems

He had some memory problems in the last few years of his life. He had suffered numerous mini-strokes, leading to a diagnosis of moderate to severe dementia. He was obese for most of his life, which further complicated his medical issues and the management of his physical needs.

My father suffered from severe knee problems for many years. Sometimes, while walking, his knee would give out and he would fall to the ground, but he was able to get back up and carry on with his day. As he got older, he was unable to get up from the ground on his own.

As his health declined, my father would wake up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom. He would sit up, take a step or two, and fall to the floor. In reality, he wasn't able to walk on his own. He'd wake up and do what he'd done out of habit for the past 70 years: head to the bathroom. He fell more times than anyone should. He tried to remember not to get up, but old habits die hard.

His doctors knew about his falls. They prescribed a sling hoist to help him get up from the floor. It was quite complicated and required two people, as well as rolling him onto one side, then rolling him onto the other, attaching heavy chains to the harness, and positioning the large machine over him as he lay on the floor. I lifted my father a couple of times with this large lift, and he got so scared that he screamed for someone to call the fire department. He was afraid of falling out of the harness while suspended in the air. I was afraid too.

Once his mind was clear, he was able to help himself up from the floor a little. By the end of 2013, my father was falling two or three times a week. His wife was able to help him up for a while, but after so many falls, he needed more help. I would go up to help, and sometimes a neighbor could help, but often we were forced to call emergency services and have the fire department come. For several months, the fire department came several times a week. My father would scream in agony because he was badly bruised and his muscles were in terrible shape from being lifted so often.

They came by a couple of times that same day and told his wife that she had to admit him to a facility that could address his needs and pick him up if he fell. My father refused to be moved to a care facility. Everyone wants to live in their own home. People need tools to help them stay in their homes until the end of their lives. His wife worked very hard to keep him at home. Together we did everything necessary to keep him at home, knowing that he would simply die if he were sent to a nursing home. He wanted to pass away at home.

While I was helping with my father's ongoing health issues, my 81-year-old mother started falling at home. She fell six times over a two-month period. After falling, she would crawl across the floor and down the hallway to reach the phone. She lived in a townhouse, and when I was in town, I could rush over to pick her up. It was a challenge when she fell in the middle of the night. And then she fell while I was working out of town. I sent my wife to help her, but she couldn't pick her up. She called a friend, and together they couldn't lift my mother off the floor. They called another friend who came to help. A couple of hours later, my mother was up off the floor. She was in pain for a week after being stuck on the floor for those couple of hours.

The next time she fell, I was out of town and she had to call the fire department. The local firefighters came and had to break into her locked house and wade through the water to lift her off the floor. They lifted her up and she was fine, but she was horrified that those five men had to break into her house after she had fallen on her way to the bathroom. She wasn't dressed appropriately. She was embarrassed and humiliated and didn't want to go through that again ever. All she needed was help getting up. She told me she would wait for me to return to town before calling the fire department again.

I was completely at a loss. My father was falling several times a week. My mother would fall, and since she had no one living with her, she was stuck for hours until someone could come to help her. I searched high and low for a way to help my parents with this problem. There was no real answer or solution to help my parents get up off the floor. I set to work building a solution that could help my stepmother lift my father off the floor and a different solution to help my mother get up off the floor without assistance.

My mission is to help people all over the world rise from the ground

I looked at every lifting and transfer device for people that I could find. There was nothing designed to help people get up from the floor. I tried everything I could think of. I installed grab bars in my mother’s hallway so she could move toward them and get up from the floor. She could move herself along the floor, but she couldn’t get up. I quickly realized that even though she could reach one bar, she couldn’t turn herself to grab the next one. When I helped her grab the second bar, she didn’t have enough upper body strength to lift herself two inches off the floor, let alone all the way up.

That was it. I needed a machine specifically designed to lift people up from the floor. I searched online for all kinds of lifts, looking for something I could modify to help my mother and father. Nothing existed. I took it as a challenge and started thinking about how to build a device that would help both of my parents.

I showed the first working prototype to some friends, and they told me about the problems they were having with their parents’ falls. I wasn’t the only one struggling with the falls of elderly parents. After doing some research, we determined that there are actually millions of people who cannot get up from the floor if they fall.

When people fall, many others are affected. Friends, family, neighbors, emergency services—everyone rushes to help. There is a tremendous need to assist those who have fallen. These people are loved ones, dependent children, people with limited mobility, older adults, veterans, accident victims, people with damaged knees and hips, and many others with disabilities who are unable to safely get up from the floor.

After building a machine that worked, it was necessary to make this solution available to anyone who needed it. My father passed away before I was able to build a working lift.

That was the beginning of IndeeLift Inc. A business was created with the mission of providing Human Floor Lifts to everyone who needs them. It is said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” And that is true. The IndeeLift people lift was built to solve a problem that millions of people experience every day. It is believed that these people can be helped by providing a simple machine made specifically to safely lift from the floor a person of any size who has fallen.

IndeeLift people lifts are designed to help mom, dad, and people with mobility challenges remain independent in the privacy of their own homes. There is no need to call for outside help when a fall happens at home. These specially built devices are designed to lift people from the floor in very little time so that everyone involved can get on with their day.

It was not possible to personally help the father in question with a fallen-person lift.

A mission was set to help people all over the world get up from the floor.