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
How Many Managers Does it Take to Run a Float Center? – DSP 200
Not every float center owner wants to be tethered to working their shop for the rest of their lives. In fact, even some that enjoy that work immensely can be doing their business a disservice by focusing on day-to-day operations as opposed to dedicating their time to marketing or expansion.
So how do float center owners get out of the shop? How many managers (Or Taco Supremes as they’re called at Float On) does it take to effectively replace the shop owner at a business. Ashkahn and Graham have successfully implemented a system at Float On that allows them to be much more hands off on the business than when they first opened and they share how got to that point and how their business structure has evolved.
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
What’s the Best Representation of Float Tanks in TV or Movies? – DSP 196
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
