Patty Stiffler has combined her knack for doing hair with an affinity for working with the elderly. Even as a child in Norco, Calif., she liked helping her elderly neighbors, with a pony express service she and other children in the rural community launched in which they used their horses to run errands for retirees.

Today, she runs a successful mobile hair and nail salon here called Rollers Inc., through which she provides a full range of salon services, including haircuts, hair coloring, perms, manicures, and pedicures to clients in their homes or at retirement centers or adult family homes. She's even hoping to begin selling franchise rights to her venture to other cosmetologists.

"Wherever you are, that's my salon," Stiffler says.

While she was working part time at Riverview Retirement Center here more than a decade ago, Stiffler, who has been a cosmetologist since 1986, first got experience providing salon services to retirees. She later began her own salon business in a storefront in Spokane Valley, but also traveled around the Spokane area doing hair for brides at the sites of their weddings.

When the lease for her store proved too expensive, Stiffler decided to shift to an all-mobile shop, setting up in a small travel trailer equipped with a hair and nail station. After a while, she pared down her equipment to a truly portable setup—which she can carry into a client's home or facility—and began traveling to her clients in her four-wheel-drive truck. Being able to get around in bad weather helped Rollers boost its business a lot this past winter, Stiffler says.

Stiffler operated Rollers as a limited liability corporation until 2008, when she reincorporated as Rollers Inc. She maintains an office at her Cheney home, and reserves one day a week for administrative work, she says.

The other four days of the week, she travels to her clients, now primarily retirees. She estimates she has clients at about 100 licensed adult family care centers and retirement facilities, including Clare House Senior Apartments; Harbor Glen, which is the Alzheimer's care unit for MBK Living's Harbor Crest retirement facility; and all four of the Classy Retreat adult family homes in Spokane. Rollers also provides services for people who receive hospice care, and for other individuals who still live in their own homes, but who have trouble getting out for hair appointments or don't like to drive in inclement weather. Rollers still does some wedding events, but focuses mainly on the retirement market, she says.

Rollers' services range in price from about $25 for a haircut to $65 for a perm and haircut.

Stiffler says she checks with salons in the mid-price range each year to gauge what they charge, and prices her services comparably.

Stiffler says her clients schedule appointments as frequently as weekly or as infrequently as once every two months. For locations such as care centers, Stiffler offers discounted prices when a center helps several clients book appointments on the same day, reducing travel costs for Rollers.

Teri Tupper, co-owner of Timberview Inc., an adult family home north of Spokane, says Rollers schedules appointments there about every two weeks, mainly because one of its residents, Tressa LaVern, is a former hairdresser and likes to get her hair cut or styled frequently. Stiffler schedules appointments with some of the other five residents of that home on the days she comes to style LaVern's hair, Tupper says. Tupper says how frequently people book such services depends in part on their disposable income.

Over the years, Stiffler has developed a way to prep her mobile work area to ensure proper sterilization of her tools in varying situations and is designing a flexible portable sink made of a vinyl-coated fabric that would fit snuggly around a client's neck so the client wouldn't have to bend over a sink when her hair was rinsed.

Stiffler says that to work with an elderly clientele, it's important to have some knowledge of their physical limitations, and to be cognizant of possible physical problems.

"A lot of people say, 'You're just a kitchen barber,' and I have to laugh," she says.

She says, for example, that clients who have osteoporosis find it more comfortable to bend their head forward into a sink, while that might be dangerous for a client who also suffers heart problems. Also, Stiffler can spot such conditions as foot infections or ingrown toenails while doing manicure and pedicure services for clients, giving her a chance to point out the problem to the client or their caregiver.

Sometimes, patients with advanced dementia or Alzheimer's can't communicate well, in which case Stiffler must watch carefully to ensure that no chemical solution gets into their eyes while doing a perm, since the client might not be able to say if she's hurting.

In some cases, family members want to give their parents the same type of perm they were accustomed to when they were younger, but the process can be physically difficult for that person to endure, if they have trouble sitting up for long periods of time, for instance. In such cases, Stiffler says she sometimes suggests they instead get their parent a flattering shorter haircut that's easier to care for, or maybe a manicure instead.

Stiffler says the business took a hit early in the economic downturn, just like many other businesses, but this past winter was a boon to her business. With her four-wheel drive truck, she rolled right in to clients' over-piled driveways, bringing services they might not otherwise be able to get, she says.

Stiffler says as much as she provides a physical service to her clients, she also provides much-appreciated social contact in many cases.

"They're often lonely and don't' have a lot of visitors. It's good when I come and we can have a laugh," she says. "They really are sometimes like my grandmas."

If she can, Stiffler brings along her dog, Peaches, a miniature Pinscher who frequently sits in clients' laps while Stiffler cuts their hair.

"I have one lady who says 'Don't come if you can't bring Peaches along,'" Stiffler says.

For some time, Stiffler had an employee working with her, but now she's working on developing the franchise system for the business instead. She says she thinks stylists often do a better job if they have ownership in their business. She says she's developing a training manual and working with a lawyer to set up as a franchiser and to patent the portable sink she's designing. When she launches the franchise venture around next January, she envisions starting by attracting franchisees in the Wenatchee and Seattle areas. She plans to continue operating Rollers in the Spokane area herself, she says.

She says franchisees will be required to have licensed, bonded, and insured cosmetologists who have had background checks.

Stiffler herself makes sure to keep her credentials with her and on file with care centers that use her services, because those centers are required to use vendors with such credentials.