LAVA – Innovative Care Shower Chair

Inclusive Design in the Context of Demographic Change

LAVA is designed for individuals with age-related physical changes, enabling independent showering with an integrated shower head, soap holder, and accessible hygiene cut-out. Extended armrests provide crucial support for standing up. It's clear shapes make cleaning easy and it meets the needs of both senior citizens and carers. It can also be valuable for people with similar mobility restrictions following surgery, during pregnancy or due to illness: an advantage of inclusive design. Additionally, its form and colour scheme uplift the care environment, enhancing users' well-being. LAVA helps ensure that stigmatised individuals can age with dignity. It was important for this project to take a ‘bottom-up’ design approach. Therefore senior citizens as well as care staff in nursing homes were interviewed. Through these interviews, hospitations and a self-experiment barriers and difficulties caused by poor design of existing shower chairs were identified. This project raises awareness of demographic change and the importance of inclusive design for a just, social and caring society.