Retractable truck steps are typically an after-market addition to your truck. There are some trucks that come with retractable steps, but those are usually the heavy-duty  trucks with four back tires instead of two. What you may not realize is that steps on a truck can be quite the benefit to people with certain health conditions. 

People with Arthritis

People in their sixties and seventies, particularly farmers, begin experiencing rheumatoid arthritis earlier than most. Hard labor has a tendency to do that. However, these people still need to get into a truck to do the work that they do. It is increasingly painful over the years to pull and jump up into the seat, so truck steps can really make a difference by making this easier to do and with a lot less pain. Joints do not lock up, either, which can also happen when you have arthritis.

People with Deteriorating Bone and Muscle Conditions

When you have a disease like muscular dystrophy or osteogenesis imperfecta, climbing up and getting into a truck is not only painful, but it is also injurious. With MS, your body does not have control over the muscles, nor will the muscles maintain strength long enough to hang on to the truck handles to allow you to pull into the seat. You end up falling and hurting yourself where you fall. With osteogenesis imperfecta, the bones are weak and deteriorate so quickly that they snap like twigs under the burden of your own body weight. In both cases, and in similar diseases, there is no way you could get into a truck without a lot of help from truck steps and assistive devices.

People with Pulmonary Issues

People who tend to lose their ability to breathe through the smallest exertion may also have a difficult time getting into a truck the usual way. Wheezing, struggling to breathe, and feeling a tightness in the chest all because you have emphysema, or congestive heart failure, or some other breathing problem, is not how you want to start your day. Many of these people experience that just by walking to the truck and trying to heave themselves into the driver's seat. That is eliminated once they can easily climb up with the retractable steps. Better still, they do not experience these systems when they open their doors to get out because the steps fold out and down again.

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