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Wood decors and upholstery fabrics for a new lifestyle
How care beds embraced cosiness
125th anniversary
For people who worked in nursing homes in the 1970s or 1980s, the sight of metal beds with ship’s railing-style safety sides was far from uncommon. There’s a simple reason for this: Medical device manufacturers of that era did not yet differentiate to the same degree between "hospital beds" for use in hospitals and those for nursing homes. "Nursing homes also purchased hospital beds," recalls Stiegelmeyer Managing Director Ralf Wiedemann. "The addition of wooden surrounds to make them cosy didn’t become an issue until the 1980s. Before that, a popular choice was to use coloured powder coatings."
The situation was similar in what was then a new market for homecare beds. These were supplied by social care centres and were required to "fit into the nurse's Polo", as Mr Wiedemann reports. The first homecare classics in the Stiegelmeyer range during the 1980s were models 4024 and 4025. To quote the catalogue, these were "hospital beds with dismantlable lying surface, backrest adjustment and castors" and, according to the advertising slogan, a design line "in the style of hospital furniture".
Stiegelmeyer’s focus on nursing homes and sanatoriums as an important business division began at the end of the 1960s, when the previously popular space-saving furniture for private customers was phased out, thereby freeing up capacities. Similarly to the hospital beds of the time, product development initially focused on bright colours. In 1972, our customer magazine waxed enthusiastic about a "coral-red paint finish" and highlighted the invigorating effect of "colours on the yellow-red scale". This was down to more than just the flower power era of the time – it stemmed from the progressive realisation that people with dementia, in particular, are able to perceive red tones better than blue or grey ones.
Along with the colourful paintwork, the first wooden surrounds also began to appear in the rehabilitation sector at that time. A Stiegelmeyer catalogue from the 1960s already lists a "sanatorium bed, steel tube chassis, headboard, footboard and side panels of veneered blockboard, adjustable backrest on a toothed rail" against number 5210. At that time, African wood types of Limba and Makoré were available, which are similar in colour to oak and cherry.
In the 1980s, care beds with wooden surrounds were slowly gaining popularity. Under the heading "Furniture that serves people – quality of life for senior citizens", our general catalogue at the time advertised a good dozen care beds offering a four-section mattress base, hydraulic height adjustment and "integrated wooden safety sides". There was a choice of solid wood parts, round posts and handle bars on the headboards and footboards.
It was only after German reunification and the introduction of nursing care insurance in 1994 that the refurbishment of East German nursing homes finally unleashed a boom in the use of the wood look finish in inpatient and outpatient care during the 1990s. Then in 1995, the catalogue listed care beds bearing the regal names "Royal" and "Regenta". The beautiful Royal bed for residential homes remained in the Burmeier range until the end of the 2010s. With its sophisticated, floor-level double wooden headboards and footboards, it was a symphony in Natural Beech.
Amidst all these design issues, Stiegelmeyer and Burmeier never lost sight of the fact that modern care beds have to fulfil high technical requirements in order to protect residents and relieve the burden on care staff. After the turn of the millennium, one innovation after another was introduced in quick succession. Stiegelmeyer caused a sensation at the Altenpflege trade fair in 2000 with the Milena model and its split safety sides. The successor to the Milena in the form of the Pareno (today known at Burmeier as the Inovia) heralded the era of low-height beds with a lowest position of just 22 cm, which protect residents from fall injuries without restricting their mobility. The successful Elvido and Libra ranges continue this development today. This was followed by Out-of-Bed systems, the Vario Safe wooden surround system, which can be removed without tools, and ultra-low beds.
But the wood decor wasn’t the only design innovation. In the 2010s, upholstered care beds were the subject of intense debate. Thanks to the huge wave of box-spring beds, upholstered design conquered thousands of bedrooms and, in some markets, also made its mark on the care sector. In Germany in particular, however, there were reservations about hygiene. Stiegelmeyer and Burmeier found convincing solutions here, such as in the form of removable soft covers for the Venta and Dali models or the removable upholstered elements of the Vario Safe system. And now we have come full circle: the coral-red hospital bed from the year 1972 is now an Elvido bed which sports stylish upholstery or a "Bloomed Cherry Planked” reddish wood decor. Our beds appeal to all the senses and offer a new quality of life.
