My wife still uses a manual chair because she has upper arm strength and can still propel herself. Although the arms of the chair can be removed, I haven't found that necessary as yet.

I place Marg's feet in such a position so that when I lift her, her weight will be centered on her feet. Sometimes, she has some strength in her legs and she can take a fair amount of weight off of me. Other times, she becomes total dead weight and that's when you have to become very careful.

I'm going to strongly echo what Moonwolf stated and that is to get an Occupational Therapist into your home. They are excellent at analyzing the situation and making recommendations to help the both of you. The last thing on earth you need is to injure your back...if that happens, you won't be able to offer your wife any assistance at all and that is the kind of problem you really don't need at this point in time.

Harry