The People Picker Upper was invented because his parents kept falling! IndeeLift was featured in a terrific article in the SF Chronicle shown below!
By Carolyn Said Jan 2, 2024
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle
Marlon Fojas demonstrates the IndeeLift by helping Marion Marx get up at Piedmont Gardens in Oakland, CA.
The IndeeLift People Picker Upper was invented because Steve Powell had a problem — one common to many people with older relatives. His mother and father kept falling down.
His divorced parents, who both wanted to age at home, lived separately near Powell’s Livermore home. They’d call him, and he’d go over and get them back on their feet.
Once he wasn’t available. His mom had to call 911 and felt humiliated in her nightgown in front of four burly firefighters.
His dad started falling more frequently and became too weak for Powell to get him up unassisted. His dad’s shoulders grew bruised from firefighters picking him up. Powell’s stepmother bought a Hoyer lift, big mechanical equipment for transferring patients, but his dad was afraid to get in the swinging harness.
Powell scoured the Internet but couldn’t find anything to help. So the telecom engineer, 66, set out to devise a solution.
He invented a device he called IndeeLift — a “people picker-upper.” He gave one to his mom, who is now 91. “She was enamored,” he said. “Instead of scooting to the phone (to call for assistance), she could scoot and put her butt on this little machine, push a button and pick herself up. So, hallelujah! We thought we had an answer here.”
The IndeeLift looks a bit like a vacuum cleaner with handles. It has a seat flush to the floor and is on wheels so someone can roll it over to a person on the floor. The fallen person scoots their rear onto the seat, presses a button and is elevated, similar to how some electric recliner chairs work. It runs on a lithium-ion battery pack.
Powell learned that millions of people fall regularly — more than 25% of all Americans over 65, according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. Most falls don’t result in injuries, but people often cannot get up — because they’re elderly or have balance issues, muscular disorders, osteoarthritis or other conditions. He realized that he could help them.
Powell started a Livermore company, IndeeLift, to sell the eponymous device, while getting some patents on it. He delivered his first consumer models in 2016.
Customers are both regular people and institutions that deal with people who fall: senior residences, skilled nursing facilities, health care agencies, fire departments.
“IndeeLift has become our fall tool,” said Daniel Wittman, executive director of Piedmont Gardens, an Oakland continuing care community for about 300 residents, ages 62 to 102. “Falls are a daily thing here. It could be one fall a day — sometimes five falls a day.”
Before IndeeLift, Piedmont Gardens would need to summon anywhere from two to four staff members to pick up a resident who had fallen, sometimes in the middle of the night. Some staff members would get injured. “It was not a great way to do that simple action,” Wittman said.
After learning about IndeeLift, “we jumped on it,” he said. The facility has four machines and uses them for 90% of falls. In some cases there isn’t enough room to use it; in some cases a person who broke a bone or suffered other injury needs different assistance. Only one staff member is needed to wheel it to the fallen person.
In addition to help after falling, some people use IndeeLift to assist with independence and mobility.
Dr. Kevin Dooley, 69, a retired ophthalmologist in Davis, has inclusion body myositis, or IBM, a rare disease characterized by muscle inflammation and degeneration. Over time, people with IBM can lose the ability to move their arms and legs.
Since his diagnosis in 2016, his muscles have progressively weakened, so now he relies on a walker at home and a power wheelchair when he goes out. He cannot stand up from a regular-height chair or sofa.
When he and his wife take car trips, they bring their IndeeLift to help him get off the furniture, by adjusting its seat plate to be slightly below a chair seat. “Being able to go away for a week; that’s really nice,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to do it without the IndeeLift.”
He uses IndeeLift to help him transfer between swimming pool lifts and his wheelchair. “Swimming is wonderful because you’re weightless in the water,” he said.
Dooley has fallen a few times as well. Because his muscles are so weak, “it would take three really strong guys to get me off the ground,” he said.
Once his family was staying at a Point Reyes rental when a big storm arose, knocking out power. He tripped and fell on the covered patio.
“My wife and daughters were able to get me on my feet with the help of the IndeeLift,” he said. “Without the IndeeLift one of them would have had to drive to where they could get cell phone reception, although driving wouldn’t have been safe in the storm. The storm was causing emergencies everywhere, and I might have had to lie outside in the wind on the cold bricks for a long time before help came.”
Kurtis Dickey is battalion chief at an East Bay fire department with about 100 firefighters in 10 stations serving 180,000 residents. Because of policies against endorsing products, he asked that the department not be named.
“As firefighters we are picking people up off the ground every single day,” he said. “We have a high population of seniors, and seniors have a tendency to fall, and the fire department are the ones who are called to pick them up.”
Even though they send three or four firefighters, the risk of injuring themselves and incurring long-term back problems is high, he said.
“You’re typically in an awkward position; you’re bent over, it’s hard to handle people,” he said.
Now the department has two IndeeLifts. It also uses IndeeLift to get patients on gurneys by rolling them onto a backboard and then lifting it with the machine.
“The product has been outstanding,” Dickey said. Frequent fallers even request it, rather than having a person pick them up.
“We do our best to be gentle, but you’re reaching under armpits, picking up by their clothing and shoulders, that causes some discomfort,” he said. “IndeeLift is a gentle chair seat, much more comfortable … and significantly decreases the chance of an injury to a firefighter.”
IndeeLift machines that lift people to a seating position start at $1,795, while versions that lift to standing start at $1,995, although the company sometimes offers discounts. Machines for health care workers and paramedics range from $3,695 to $6,250.
The company expects $2.8 million in sales this year, about 90% of that to consumers, Powell said.
Medicare offers 80% reimbursement for “a medically necessary seat lift when prescribed by a physician” for people with disabilities deemed sufficiently severe.
IndeeLift said Medicare sometimes reimburses immediately for its devices, sometimes flatly denies the claim and sometimes forces patients to dispute its decision.
The company has applied for a specific Medicare code that will be reviewed in June. “If approved, it will facilitate the processing of health insurance claims by Medicare and other insurers,” IndeeLift said.
His father died before Powell invented IndeeLift, but his mom and her caregiver rely on IndeeLift.
“She used our machine three times in the last month,” he said. “She’s able to live alone in her apartment the way she wants.”
