Hiya folks!
- Just heard Someone ring my doorBells
On the rare occasions I feel too unbalanced to walk, I'll go all fours along the passage. On my own, so no one knows anyway
Yeah, I do do this when exhausted. Even if visitors are there. If anyone doesn't get it, they get it then.
And slow cycling instead of going for walks - if anyone asks or chides me for being on a pavement: that's
my 'walker'.
It seldom helps me to push it, so I don't think a walker is ever gonna be for me. Like Nordic walking sticks: Leaning hurts elbows/wrists.
My wife keeps offering gadgets that help and her help. She in the past often talked about a walker or chair lift for the stairs.
But my attitude is:
Use it, don't lose it.
Hard for her to accept my stubbornness. Sometimes I humour her, and accept 'help', so she feels better. Humouring her makes me laugh.
If I take a hand she offers, I often hurt myself, esp. my feet, cos I can't move as slowly and smoothly as I need to.
On the stroke unit for a week last August cos of attack of severe vertigo and imbalance, the only slight help was the physio teaching me
balance exercises.
It got better fairly quickly, praps cos of adjusting supps a bit. (Not directly cos of the exercises tho.)
But imbalance remains, esp. in the dark, I've recently realised, and I don't put the lights on when I'm up 3-6x at night, even when cold showering, so I don't wake up.
But the more imbalanced I feel, the more that reminds me to do balance exercises. Same as with other symptoms like fatigue/Ache and esp. local pains. First I ask myself and around how can I improve my body. With what's left I develop workarounds. And only if anything is left there do I try to ease that.
So my main balance exercises are walking on straight lines, maybe with closed eyes, or looking straight to the left/right, standing on one leg, cycling on pavement curbs... As with most exercises I usually do them while doing what needs to be done or while doing something else. However long it takes I try to wash and dry my feet and take my socks and jeans off standing.
As a workaround I may lean against the wall in the shower. To get tight jeans off over my 5 pairs of socks, I trample them down and hold them with the other foot while pulling away.
Back to the question: When imbalanced, I walk around the flat broadly, like a sailor on a ship. Incidentally on ships I used to do that too, rather than use railings, on trains and in buses the same. Even if I can only shuffle. My gadgets and appliances are everything around me, MacGyver style. See the youtube video How to get up off the floor MacGyver style - and other moving videos for ... the elderly... ah, there we are back to the age topic above, but from an active angle... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
To save energy and practice balance at the same time, I may let myself fall against a wall/things, roll myself off / up from them, let myself drop, use rebound effects, throw a limb or two in the direction I want to go, etc.
Your passage with praps hand rails would be me walking thru the big room I sleep in, too many chairs and stuff to use the walls.
If sailor walk didn't work, I'd use what's standing there, if necessary place it better or crawl.
Similar our house staircase with banisters: I just tested. I usually only use them to drag myself up or drop on to, again using rebound effects, if I'm exhausted. Like I used to when I was 10x as quick and wanted a turbo jet boost. Apart from that, I avoid using the banisters and walls. And actually there again I do the opposite. Almost every time I use the stairs, I carry my tray with my laptop, big camera, food and other things I need in the garden, plus smaller bits of rubbish for the bins & composter, sometimes a lighter bag or empty watering can for the balcony. I carry this myself and when it's dark don't put on a light either - that decreases my balance, but increases my attention. My wife always offers to carry it, but I feel safer/better carrying it myself.
Maybe the try does help my sense of balance. Oh, and something important I do often use, again body-own is I play aeroplane, put my arms out to the side. Unless carrying the tray
. And I don't care who sees that.
Now I've rememered situations where I do fairly often use hand on walls: When getting up after caring for the wild plants in front of the house. And back from the shops after getting off my bike I lay against the wall, sometimes before getting off it. But I can't remember a further situation where I'd need handles or banisters.
My wife often offers to pick things up off the floor for me or get me things, and I actually don't like that. The only time when I can really accept people picking things up for me is at table tennis, so I can last more than one game.
So of course, there'll be situations where we need gadgets and help.
But delaying their use as long as possible is my way about it, improving and compensating with what's there.
I have a grab rail on my bath, (I've also had my taps altered to the push types) I would be much happier in an elderly person type of place, 100% if you can (have one fitted, whatever will make life easier for you,) when I move I'm gonna ask if some thing's can be changed (to easier function) 
