Improving the toilet environment holds promises for increasing the quality of life for elderly and disabled persons. This is one of the goals of the Friendly Rest Room (FRR) project.The study described in this article explored the preference and use of supports in the toilet environment during the entire toilet ritual.An adjustable test frame was built with a toilet and three types of supports. Fourteen subjects were asked which positions they favoured for each support. After using all three supports they were asked which support they found most comfortable.In general, the preferred positions depended on personal preferences more than on dimensions of the body. It was concluded that there is a preference for vertical supports for sitting down and standing up. During toilet use the side supports were equally appreciated.Keywords: support, toilet, elderly IntroductionFor many elderly and disabled persons using the toilet is a problem: when help is needed their quality of life often drastically decreases. This research is part of the Friendly Rest Room (FRR) project which aims to study problems with existing rest rooms and to develop a friendly toilet environment: friendly to the largest possible group of users, for use at home, in homes for the elderly, hospitals or public environments. The FRR project is supported by the EU within the 'Quality of Life and Management of Living Resource' programme and Key Action 6: 'The Ageing Population and Disabilities' of the European Union.Ageing people in general deal with decrease of physical, psychomotoric and sensory capacities (Molenbroek, 1987). Because sitting down and getting up require postural control, the elderly are likely to have more trouble than younger people (Mourey et al., 1998).The most frequently applied method to deal with sitting down on and rising from toilets is the installation of a raised toilet. This possibly introduces other problems, such as increased straining and time on the toilet due to an unfavourable posture (Dov Sikirov, 2003). Kirvesoja et al. (2000) found indications for discomfort during prolonged sitting on elevated chairs.The method of using supports is the topic of this study. Supports allow the muscles of the legs to be assisted by the muscles of the arms and enlarge the footprint, enabling a more stable sequence of movements while sitting down and standing up. Raised toilets and supports are often combined to decrease problems with toilet use. 2Hand supports to assist toilet use among the elderlyThe ultimate friendly rest room will adapt to the user, as opposed to a toilet environment that the user has to adapt to. Within the FRR project an extensive search (Buzink et al., 2005) was conducted to find relevant literature for determining support types and positions.The most relevant publication (Bosman, 1999) reported that slightly more than half of the elderly prefer getting up with a pulling motion. A quarter of the subjects favoured a combination of pulling and pushing. The overall conclusion from this article is that the eld...