Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham and Ashkahn talk about the different situations they’ve encountered with elderly floaters.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: … and today’s question for you or, I guess, for us is, “is there an upper age limit on floating?”
Ashkahn: Upper age limit on floating. What is the oldest age someone can float?
Graham: Is allowed to float.
Ashkahn: Is allowed to float. I see. It’s an interesting one, because you can’t really apply the same logic you apply to like youngest age. For youth, you can just use real numbers, I think, because there’s like laws and there’s … But with old age, I feel like that it’s much more contextual, about the person and kind of what state their body is in and stuff like that. Like it almost has less to do with actual specific age and more to do with their physical state.
Graham: Yeah, and I guess the concerns would be that like either someone’s mentally not there and something’s going to go wrong, or they’re just not going to be like … I remember hearing a horror story about someone with dementia floating and coming to in the float tank and her not realizing where she was, or like how she’d gotten there, which is kind of crazy.
Ashkahn: Wow. Yeah, interesting.
Graham: So there’s like mentally not being there, and then also just on the physical side, right? Being a little more fragile, or … You know, we have a lot of slippery salt water, so the idea of someone slipping and breaking their bones just becomes more of a concern the older they get.
Ashkahn: Or not being able to get out, you know?
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Like your body just got used to not dealing with gravity for a little bit …
Graham: And then saying it’s done. I’m never going to deal with gravity again.
Ashkahn: And, I mean, incontinence, I guess, is the last thing on the list.
Graham: Sure, yep.
Ashkahn: Those are probably like the main concerns, I would say.
Graham: And again, none of these are specific to age, which I guess makes it an interesting question, right?
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: Like you can imagine a 20-year-old who has some or all of those problems as well.
Ashkahn: Uh-huh, yeah.
Graham: And you can picture like a 90-year-old who’s able to get around and who we have no trouble putting in a float tank.
Ashkahn: Right. So, yeah. I guess you can’t really just set an age limit like that, can you?
Graham: And then, at least in Float On, we really don’t have one. We more have like, I guess, a mobility limit or something like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Like we make sure if you have mobility questions, we make sure to clarify that we cannot help you get in and out of the float tank, like our staff’s not trained to do that. We can’t take on the liability of something like that, especially if it’s for someone who has trouble physically getting in and out of a float tank.
Graham: Until I saw this question, I guess I’d never really thought about our upper age limit on floating, but I guess we tackle it more on the like condition side, or actually addressing those worries that we have rather than actually putting any kind of age limit on there.
Ashkahn: Right. And again, it doesn’t come up super often. We’re not getting like a bunch of people coming in, lining up and like demanding to float, we’re like, “You’re too old. You can’t float.”
Graham: Yep. I should say, I just took a look at our stats on our ages of floaters that we’ve received over the years and our oldest floaters, self-reported on the books, are 117 years old, so … And they’re doing just fine.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Okay, all right. Well, that makes sense, so alright, I guess if they can do it anyone can do it, huh?
Graham: And next below that’s 103, so yeah. That’s doing good.
Ashkahn: That would have been impressive if it had not been for the 117-year-old.
Graham: Two of them.
Ashkahn: Two? There’s two people who are 117?
Graham: Two 117-year-olds, yeah.
Ashkahn: A husband and wife that came in?
Graham: Just because they’re married doesn’t mean they’re the same age.
Ashkahn: All right, two twins who both lived that long?
Graham: Just because someone’s twins doesn’t … Okay, so we addressed the kind of mobility side of things. I guess we don’t really address the incontinence side.
Ashkahn: I mean, in my experience, if this comes up they ask about it from their perspective. Like if someone’s coming in who may have some concerns, they’ll ask on the phone when they’re making their appointment or stuff like that. That’s almost always been the case for me, so I’ll just include it in my list. I’m like, “Hey, well, you have to get in and out of the float tanks. They can be slippery, it can be kind of difficult, so you’ve got to make sure you’re physically fit enough to do that. And you’re in there for a long period of time. You can’t have any sort of incontinence issues or stuff like that.”
And have I even heard of someone before being like, “Oh, okay. Well, nevermind. I probably shouldn’t do it then,” and kind of realizing their own limits. It’s, I guess, a little bit of a delicate situation, but I feel like just often they ask when they’re booking appointments, and you just kind of be honest and list the things that make it difficult.
Graham: Yeah, for sure. And then, I guess the mental side as well is who’s kind of on there, which I guess, once again, it’s like if people are able to go out and interact with the normal world in a way that’s not difficult for them or the people around them, that’s fine. If someone has a caregiver, we usually request that a caregiver actually come in. We’ve had people with even like not extreme autism but definitely far enough along the spectrum that they’re not interacting with the outside world on their own every day and stuff like that, and that’s gone fine, we just actually have the caregiver stay in the room in that case.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And that actually ends up being the solution for mobility too, is we request that if they do have mobility issues and still want to use the tanks, we have an ADA room and we just require them to bring in someone who can help them in and out of the tank or be that person.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: So there you have it. No actual age limit, more like controls to make sure that the stuff that might go wrong doesn’t become a problem.
Ashkahn: Yep. Okay? Cool. Well, if you guys have any further questions for us, you can hop over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast, put them in there and we will take a look at them, and if we deem them worthy they will be answered.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Being the First Float Center – DSP 320
What’s it like to be the first float center to open in an area? How do you handle it?
Graham and Ashkahn explain what it was like opening Float On, being one of the first dedicated float centers in the United States. The exciting thing is that creating awareness is really fun, but it can be a little stressful since your float center will represent floating as a practice for people.
Many of the tips here are the same for anyone opening a center: focus on awareness, be prepared to educate, and make sure your floats are the best they can be.
Are Light or Dark Colored Float Rooms better? – DSP 319
Is it better to have a light colored room that hides salt, or a dark colored room that easily shows it?
Graham and Ashkahn dish out some strong opinions on this idea, especially the idea that dark colored rooms and tanks are good for maintaining employee accountability.
What you Need to Know About Algorithms – DSP 318
Ashkahn and Derek talk about algorithms, those pesky bits of code that push your posts up or down on social media and search engines and leave you scrambling for ways to get likes and clicks, constantly mixing it up to just be seen.
The duo discusses how algorithms affect everyday posts for small businesses and how to keep up on information about the constantly changing nature of these systems. The main takeaway is, if your content is fresh, non-repetitive and you aren’t trying to game the system, you likely have nothing to worry about.
Commissions for Memberships? – DSP 317
Any sales related business knows that commissions are the gold-standard incentive program for drumming up business, but how does it work in a float center for memberships?
Derek and Ashkahn talk about the mixed success they’ve experienced at Float On each time it’s been tried.
Getting Members to Float More Often – DSP 316
Single float memberships have become increasingly more common in the float industry, typically with the option to purchase additional floats for the month at a discount. But how do you properly incentivize those members to float more than a single time per month?
Ashkahn and Derek talk marketing tips to keeping your float center top of mind and making sure your members are active regularly.
Latest Blog Posts
How Many Float Tanks Should I Have?
Intro If you’ve crossed over into the sacred realm of “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna open up a float center,” an obvious question arises — “How many tanks should I have?” Now, if you’re like me, you’re creating a 90 tank float community where everyone who buys in...
The Construction Secret to Soundproofing: Storage Between Float Rooms
If you’ve ever taken a look at our construction materials or gotten advice on soundproofing, you’ve probably heard of the importance of including “air gaps” when building out your center. What that means and why it helps can be a bit of a technical question, and the practical implementation can seem daunting and unreasonable.
Float Conference 2017 Recap
Now that the salt has settled, I’m sharing some thoughts from “The Great Gathering of People Who Really Love Being Alone Sometimes in a Dark, Briny Room,” also known as The Float Conference.
The conference has always been an amazing opportunity to connect with the pulse of the broader float industry and, if this year’s gathering showed us anything, it’s that our collective heartbeat is as strong as ever.
2017 Float Conference Program Introduction
Every year, I have the great pleasure of writing the introduction for the Float Conference program, and every year we share it on our blog so that members of the industry who weren’t able to make the journey out to Portland are able to check it out. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
From all of us at Float Tank Solutions, where our time is measured as the space between two conferences, thank you again for a wonderful year!
– Graham Talley
