Gift Ideas for Someone With Limited Mobility

A lap blanket says get well soon. The things on this page say something more useful: the jar's open, dinner got cooked sitting down, and the evening's crochet is still going at ten.

Each one has its own write-up, linked from its entry.

Sink to stove, seated

A stool for cooking sitting down

Standing still at a counter is what ends the cooking, long before the chopping does. The chronic pain threads found the way round it at the hairdresser's.

Digby leans on a wooden kitchen counter beside a half-chopped carrot, one paw on the worktop and the other pressed into the small of his back. His eyes are half shut and his mouth is flat. A red pot steams on the hob behind him.

With POTS the blood pools in the legs and the fog arrives. With chronic pain it's the pain itself, a quarter of an hour in. So the people in the EDS and chronic pain threads cook from a saddle stool with wheels, the tall seat shaped like a riding saddle that sits at the salon's shampoo bowl.

For someone with EDS, POTS, chronic pain or chronic fatigue who still wants to cook their own dinner. The FRNIAMC saddle stool is the one the owners in those threads link.

You straddle it rather than sit on it, so the knees never meet the cabinet and you get right up to the counter. Then you roll from the sink to the stove without getting up.

It's the one gift here that wants a tape measure. Check the stool's height range against their counter before you order, and plan for a footrest. Feet left dangling make the core work harder.

Someone who needs a backrest wants a different chair. A stool with a small back looks like the safe middle, but it isn't. There's more on picking the right stool height, with an owner who reported back three weeks in.

Turn the jar instead

A jar opener for one hand

Every trick for a stuck jar assumes two good hands. This one needs no grip at all, and it lives under a kitchen cabinet.

Digby reaches up to twist a pasta sauce jar into the fitting under his kitchen cabinet, grinning, the bag of groceries still clamped under his other arm.

It screws to the underside of the cabinet and waits there. Push the jar up into its V of metal teeth, let them bite the lid, and turn the jar instead of the lid. Nothing has to be gripped.

For someone with one working hand, a wrist in a cast or arthritis that's taken the grip. The opener works on leverage rather than a squeeze, which is why a roundup of jar openers for arthritis made this style its winner.

The EZ Off is the one the threads name. It needs no batteries and takes up no counter space.

Somebody has to fit it, with the V facing out into the room, so give it with the offer to put it up. Before anyone drills, read the checks for mounting it, and the owner who put one up ahead of a shoulder operation.

The wrist does the pulling

A hook for pull-tab cans

The ring on a can of soup or cat food was put there to save you the opener. It still asks for a nail under it and a pinch, the move arthritic hands find hardest.

Digby the mole hunched at a kitchen counter, one claw jammed under the tab of a small can, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open in pain. A grey tabby cat looks up at the can from the floor.

One r/rheumatoid member keeps a screwdriver and a pair of pliers in the kitchen drawer, the screwdriver to lift the tab and the pliers to finish the pull. The Jokari ring-pull opener does both jobs in one piece. Its hook slides under the ring, and a roll of the wrist lifts the tab, so the fingers hold a handle instead of pinching.

For someone with arthritis who can't get a finger under a pull tab, or finds the pinch the part that hurts. Another member of that thread has a tool for pop-top cans and opens the cats' food with it every morning. They could open them before, they say, but now it's so much easier.

It's drawer-sized, so it goes in a stocking or on top of a bigger box. For the morning it goes missing, there's a butter-knife way of opening a pull-tab can in the same thread.

Tea without lifting the kettle

A kettle tipper for a tea drinker

Someone who loves tea in r/Thritis couldn't lift a kettle any more without risking an injury, and was boiling water in a tiny pasta pot instead. Britain has had the answer for years.

A wider view of the kitchen: the kettle sits in a pale cradle on the counter, and Digby tips it forward with one paw on the handle, a thin stream running into the mug. He looks relaxed.

The Derby kettle tipper is a plastic cradle. The kettle sits in it with a strap round it, and the whole cradle pivots forward, so the spout dips to the mug and the cradle carries the weight.

In Britain it's ordinary kit, the kind an occupational therapist recommends, and Parkinson's UK lists it on its kitchen equipment page. In America nobody seems to have heard of it.

For a tea drinker with arthritis, a tremor or a grip that's gone, who can still lift the kettle empty. Check their kettle against the cradle before you order: the cradles are shaped for common kettle styles, and the shops that sell them say which each one takes.

For someone who can't lift the kettle even empty, a pump dispenser that's filled where it stands is the gift instead. How a kettle tipper works gets its own explanation, along with the cheaper route for the same hands.

Dry by the bedroom

A terry robe instead of a towel

A towel wants a grip, a shoulder that reaches round to the back and some energy left once the shower is done. When one of those has gone, the drying is the hard part.

In the bedroom next door, Digby sits on the edge of the bed in a thick burgundy bathrobe a size too big, paws in his lap and an easy smile. The robe has gone dark with damp at the shoulders.

On the Parkinson's UK forum, one member's family bought them a proper terry towelling robe for Christmas. They put it on after the bath now, and by the time they've made their way to the bedroom they're dry. A cotton terry robe is what the threads reach for, and the American Stroke Association tells survivors the same thing, a terrycloth robe and slipper socks after the shower.

For someone whose hands shake or whose shower wipes them out. On the ALS forum the tip is to sit down in it and let the robe do the work, and someone in r/cfs puts it on and lies down wherever.

Terry towelling is the fabric to buy, in a loose cut rather than a fitted one, because the sleeves are the hard bit when hands are at their worst. A hood does the hair. If sleeves are already beyond them, a towel wrap with shoulder straps does the robe's job without any, and that one is worth asking about before you buy.

The whole method is put it on wet and sit down for a few minutes. Drying off without a towel has the fan heater for the bits a robe misses as well.

Hands free at the mirror

A stand that holds the hair dryer

Holding a dryer up by your head for a whole blow-dry is the part a sore shoulder or one working hand can't manage, and some people wash their hair less often to get out of it.

Digby the mole on a wooden stool at a dressing table, a pink towel round his shoulders and a hair dryer in one raised paw, his other paw pressed to the shoulder of that arm. His brows are drawn up as he winces at his reflection, mouth in a small tight ow.

The stand holds the dryer at head height instead. Switch it on, aim it, and move your head under it rather than the dryer round your head.

For someone whose arm gives out before their hair is dry, or who has one working hand. It takes the dryer they already own. The RELMITALL floor tripod stands beside a chair, and the Simaixing clamp grips the edge of a vanity or a desk, so ask where they dry their hair before you pick one. Drying your hair with a sore shoulder has the thread where several people had never heard of these.

Turning over at night

Satin sheets for turning over in bed

Rolling over in bed is one of the first things Parkinson's makes slow. When a daughter asked r/Parkinsons for gift ideas, satin sheets were one of the answers.

Digby, in the same striped pajamas, lies on his side on a glossy raspberry satin sheet with his feet on a band of plain grey cotton at the foot of the bed. He looks easy and content, and a folded satin pajama set sits on a chair at the edge of the frame.

Satin has less grip than cotton, so a stiff sleeper can slide onto their side instead of dragging themselves round. Parkinson's UK lists satin sheets on its own page of bedroom equipment.

For someone with Parkinson's who struggles to turn over at night. The Vonty satin sheet set is a plain one. Give it with one rule attached: the satin top sheet goes over a cotton fitted sheet, and never on the same night as satin pajamas. The write-up explains why, from people who've slid out of bed.

Seen after dark

Reflective stickers for a wheelchair

A wheelchair is low, dark and nothing like the shape a driver is looking for. The fix one r/disability thread settled on came off the motorcycle shelf.

Digby sits in a dark power chair at a suburban kerb at dusk, clutching his coat and watching a car drive off down the road without having seen him.

Small matte black reflective stickers look like nothing by day but light up the moment a headlight hits them. The lights made for wheelchairs run on a battery somebody has to remember to charge, and these don't.

For a wheelchair user whose day ends after dark. There's nothing to switch on or charge, and the chair still looks like itself. The Bright Knight stickers are the pack that thread named, pre-cut circles small enough to sit on a frame tube and made from the 3M material cyclists rate.

For a chair that wants more coverage, the rim strips follow the wheel. Nobody has reported peeling any of it off again, so on a chair an insurer owns, start with two stickers somewhere out of sight. Then read up on which reflective grades are worth buying, and the power chair that went to a light trail.

The door comes with you

A handle to shut the door from a wheelchair

Roll through a doorway and the knob swings out of reach behind you. One r/wheelchairs poster closes it with their fingers in the gap by the hinges. Three replies told them to stop.

Close on the bedroom door: Digby leans back a little in his wheelchair, smiling, his paw round a small brass bar near the hinges. The round brass knob is a long way off at the door's other edge.

The fix is a second handle near the door's hinge edge, the edge that's beside you once you're through. Reach back, take hold of it, and the door comes with you until the door's own knob comes within reach.

The T-Pull is the handle made for the job. It sticks on with adhesive, no drilling, and swivels out of the way when nobody's pulling on it.

For a wheelchair user, or anyone whose shoulder won't let them reach behind. The one owner in the thread says it works great.

A heavy door or an exterior one wants the screws from the box, put in from the start. On a door they own, a drawer pull and two screws does the same job, and the person in the thread who fitted one says it works perfectly.

Wrap the T-Pull for the door they go through most. Give which handle suits which door a look first, though, since a door nobody's allowed to drill has a trick of its own.

The hose does the carrying

A pump instead of buckets for the fish keeper

Draining a fish tank is free, because gravity does it. Refilling is the half that costs a back: bucket after bucket from the sink to the tank.

Digby halfway across a living room with his eyes closed, leaning back with a paw pressed to his lower back and letting out a long tired breath. A full bucket of water stands on the floor beside him, a fish tank glows on its stand at the right, and a second full bucket waits by the open doorway behind him.

The fish keepers with bad joints and sore shoulders in the aquarium threads have stopped carrying them. A small submersible pump, the kind sold for garden ponds, sits in a bucket in the sink and sends the water up a hose to the tank.

For someone with a bad back or bad joints who keeps fish, or whose tank is nowhere near a tap. One member of the Aquarium Co-Op forum hurt their back hauling buckets and says the pump made water changes easy. The hygger water change pump is the one to buy, one size up from the smallest, with an intake on the bottom and a lift rating taller than the climb from bucket to rim.

The tubing is a separate buy from the hardware store. How a pump water change works, drain half first, is spelled out with the owner who glues the hose on.

Keeps a craft going

A diamond painting pen for an arthritic thumb

Each gem on a diamond painting canvas is a pinch and a press, and a canvas holds thousands. The painters with arthritis have worked out how to keep the thumb going.

At the same table, the flower canvas is nearly full and glittering. Digby sits back with a small smile, the slim wand loose in one paw and its hose trailing off the table, the stylus put aside by the tray.

A painter with severe arthritis in r/diamondpainting calls it one of the few things they can still do.

Two fixes, for two kinds of hurt. A fat pen takes the pinch out of the grip. The Benote is the one a painter with pain at the base of both thumbs used to nearly finish a canvas the day it arrived.

A vacuum pen takes the press out: the tip holds the gem by suction, so nothing gets pushed and there's no wax to reload. The Picmondoo puts the pump in a box on the table and runs a hose to a thin wand, so the hum never reaches the hand. A hollowed fat pen goes on that hose too, for the painter who needs both.

For the diamond painter with arthritis in their hands, neuropathy or hypermobility. Skip the vacuum pens with the pump built into the handle: they buzz in the hand, and more than one painter gave up on them over it. If they'd rather keep the pen that came in the kit, there's a vet-wrap trick for its grip.

Less cramp, more rows

A fat grip for a crochet hook

A thin hook held tight for an hour is what sets the hand off. The grip crocheters pass around for it comes out of a makeup bag.

Digby smiles as he pushes a thin metal crochet hook through a fat raspberry foam grip.

It's a teardrop makeup sponge with a hole poked through it and the hook pushed in. The foam closes round the hook, the handle is suddenly fat, and the wrist cramps less.

For the crocheter with arthritis, or a hand that gives up partway through a blanket. One crocheter with psoriatic arthritis went to a giant sponge. It took much of the tiredness out of their hands, they say, and suits them better than the other hook hacks.

A bag of twenty sponges covers a whole hook collection, with spares for the day a thumbnail shreds one. For someone who holds the hook like a pencil, the minis stay out of the way.

Make the hole as small as a needle allows, because a big one lets the hook twist. On its own a bag of sponges is a stocking stuffer, so tuck it in with a skein of yarn. Crocheters push other cheap things onto a hook too.

Which one to wrap first

Start with the jar opener when the kitchen is theirs, because every kitchen has a jar that won't open and most have a cabinet to screw it under. The stool is the big present, though it wants a measurement first. The rest go by what the person does: opens cans, makes tea, dries off, blow-dries, turns over at night, rolls home after dark, shuts doors from a chair, keeps a tank, fills a canvas, or works a hook.