Overcoming Handicap - With Gadgets (Part 1)

An extension of the pan of adapting your surrounding s to suit yourself is to have things that will do work for your or make it possible for your to do things which your rheumatism would otherwise prevent. The oldest of these is the back scratcher, which was probably in use even before modern man evolved and is still a comforting gadget. Some back scartchers are beautiful as well as practical, having clearly been made by men who found joy in adding art to utility. Other aids to toilet are long-handled brushes and combs for the hair and long-handled plastics sponges for washing.

Dressing

Dressing can be made easier in many ways. Buttons need to be large if stiff fingers are to manage them. Zip-fasteners are only easier if the handle of the slide is large and if both ends of the zip are fixed. Try using one hand only to work the zip-fastener of a jacket and you will find that that it is much easier to pull it down, when the shoulders hold the zip in position, than it is to pull it up from the bottom, where there is no such anchor. Easier than either buttons or zip for stiff fingers are 'velcro' fasteners, in which two layers stick together when pressed but can be pulled apart again.

Shoes

Shoes can often be bought with elastic sides; though please do not forget that the kind of shoes that should be worn for every day. Lace-up shoes can be converted to slip-on shoes by using elastic laces. Putting any shoe on can be made easier with a long shoe-horn. Inside the shoed go you socks to stocking, but how do you put them on with stiff knees or stiff fingers? One simple gadget consists of two lengths of string, each with a spring clothes peg at each end; cllip the pegs on the stocking and pull on the strings. Another is to use suspenders instead of clothes pegs; a commercial version of this has the suspenders on a rigid handle, but suspenders do need nimble fingers.

Stockings

There are also stockings that support themselves by clinging to the thigh. These ways of avoiding suspenders do not, however help if you want to use stockings to stop a corset, surgical or cosmetic, from riding up. Some surgical corsets are provided with straps that pass between the legs, but even on men these easily become very messy. Another solution is to have the suspenders on the stockings attached to tapes with large press studs which can be popped on and off the corset.

Suppose you drop something on the floor when you are dressing and your disability makes it difficult for you to reach the floor. How do you pick it up? Use tongs. There are three main varieties of these: one is sold for washing dishes and just allows a good hand to teach farther; one has a jaw worked by a lever or string controlled by a simple handle that almost any hand can use; the third is known as 'lazy thongs', the prettiest as pieces of mechanical ingenuity and attractive in theory, but usually in practice wanting in accuracy and ease of control. Tongs are also very useful for serving and preparing food.

Kitchen

In the kitchen it is far better to have a few simple gadgets than a host of complicated ones. Take potato peeling, for instance. If your hands are too stiff to grip the knife or peeler, enlarge the handle with two bits of wood held on by elastic bands or sting; when they get dirty they can be replaced cheaply and easily. If you want to enlarge the handle with elegant washable plastic you run into a number of difficulties: there used to be a plastic made for the purpose; to put the stuff on you need a satisfactory mould which, although not complicated, has to be made by someone with some mechanical sense; when it is on there is a crack in which dirt collects and out of which it cannot be removed without heating the plastic and going through the molding process again; then you run into the biggest snag- that the firm that supplied it no longer makes it.

Back to Rheumatism