On a January morning about twenty months ago, my husband Gene sat on the edge of our bed for ten minutes and could not stand up. He is 74 now, his right hip is weak, and a mattress gives under your hand in a way that gives you nothing to push against. I came up the stairs and pulled on his arm, which is a bad arrangement for a man with a bad hip and a woman with a replaced left knee. That afternoon we started looking, and the thing we ended up buying was a Medline bed assist bar.
I am 71. I taught elementary music, I sing alto at my church on Sundays, and I am not a nurse, a doctor, or a physical therapist. I ran this past Dana, the physical therapist who got me walking again after my knee, before we installed anything, and I would tell you to do the same. What I can speak to is the ordinary business of getting out of a bed in an upstairs bedroom of a two-story house in Dayton, because that is the part I watched change.
The handle Gene reaches for every morning, twenty months in
A U shaped bar that sits at the side of the mattress as a fixed handhold. Height adjustable, 6.4 pounds, with a nylon storage pocket for reading glasses and the remote. It is a handle for getting up, not a rail that keeps anybody in bed, and that is exactly how we use it.
Amazon Check today's price on Amazon →Here is what that bar actually did for us, in the order I would tell a friend at my kitchen table.
It gives your hand something that does not give back
When you push down on a mattress, the mattress sinks. That is the whole problem in one sentence. Gene plants his right hand on the bar, leans forward, and the bar stays where it is. He does not have to hunt for a firm spot on a soft surface at six in the morning when his hip is at its stiffest. Twenty seconds and he is up.
Your feet land where you meant them to land
There is a moment in getting up when your weight is on one hand and your feet are still deciding. Gene used to come down on the outside of his right foot and catch himself on the nightstand. With a fixed handhold at the side of the mattress he swings his legs over and sets both feet flat before he stands. Nothing dramatic about it. Just less catching.
It turns a two-person job into a one-person job
For a while there, I was the second person. He would call, I would come up the stairs, and I would pull. Pulling on a grown man's arm with a replaced knee is a fine way to hurt two people at once. Now most mornings I hear him get up and I hear nothing after that. He has never said thank you for it, which from Gene means the same thing.
The height adjusts to the bed it is on, not the other way around
The bar is height adjustable, and we set it once for a queen mattress on a plain frame, the way you would set a bicycle seat. Gene is 5 foot 10. If your bed sits higher or lower than ours, you move the bar and not your habits. That matters more than it sounds. A handhold two inches too low makes you reach at exactly the moment you are least steady.
It fits the bed you already own
The Medline bar is made for non-articulating twin, full, and queen beds. Ours is a queen on a plain frame, not adjustable, which is what most of us are sleeping on anyway. If you have an adjustable bed that folds at the head or the knees, this is not the piece for you, and you are better off knowing that before you order than after it arrives.
The pocket is not a gimmick
I thought the nylon storage pocket was marketing. It is not. Gene's reading glasses and the television remote live in it now, which means he is not twisting sideways toward the nightstand at bedtime, and that twist was the motion that worried me. The pocket wipes clean with a damp cloth, same as the rest of it, and it has not stretched out.
It weighs 6.4 pounds, so one person can move it
Which means I can shift it by myself when I vacuum under the bed, and Gene can nudge it back into place without calling me. Nothing about this piece needs two sets of hands to reposition. For a thing that lives in a bedroom and gets dusted once a week, that matters more than a spec line suggests.
Getting it in took Gene about twenty minutes
I read the instructions out loud and he did the work. Twenty minutes on a Saturday, with one break to find his glasses and one cup of coffee in the middle. That is the entire installation story. Neither of us is handy and we did not need anybody's son-in-law to come over, which was my main worry when we ordered it.
It does not make the bedroom feel like a sickroom
A bed rail with legs standing on the floor announces itself from the doorway. This is a U shaped bar at the side of the mattress with a pocket on it. We have had guests sleep in that room and not said one word about it. When you are 74 and you have already swallowed some pride to carry a cane, that is not a small thing.
Twenty months later it is still the thing he reaches for
The first week is easy to explain, because everything helps the first week. What I did not expect is that we would still be here twenty months on, bar exactly where it started, Gene using it every morning without thinking about it. It has become furniture in the best sense. That is the closest thing to a recommendation I know how to give.
What I'd Skip
I would skip anything sold as a way to keep someone from rolling out of bed. This bar is a handle. It is not a rail, it does not fence anybody in, and Gene and I never treat it as one. If falling out of bed is your worry, that is a different conversation, and it is one to have with a doctor or an occupational therapist rather than with a product page or with me.
I would also skip buying it in a panic on a bad morning, which is nearly what we did, and I would skip buying two. One on the side where the person who needs it sleeps is enough for a couple sharing a queen bed. Ours is on Gene's side and I have never once wanted one on mine. And I would skip the idea that this replaces Dana's advice. Ask first, then set the height with the person who will use it standing right there next to you.
He used to call me up the stairs. Now I hear him get up and I hear nothing after that. Twenty months in, that is still the best thing I can tell you about it.
One handhold, at the right height, on the side of the bed he sleeps on
The Medline bed assist bar is 6.4 pounds, height adjustable, and made for non-articulating twin, full, and queen beds. Ask your physical therapist first, the way I asked Dana. Then set the height with the person who will use it standing beside you, and let it be a handle and nothing more.
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