I've gathered and been given various aids/adaptions/gadgets over the years that are all helpful for something. I thought id share the ones I currently use in a serious of posts looking at different areas of living, as you can probably tell by the title this posts about cooking and cleaning.
Now a lot of the movement and concentration involved in cooking and cleaning I struggle with, for example, hovering, mopping, dusting, chopping, grating, using an oven all cause me issues. Depending on your abilities you may find some or all domestic tasks too much, but I will show you what I use to do what I can and why it helps.
First of all I have somewhere I can quickly sit down in every room, this is in case I'm about to faint so I can quickly sit down and recover. For the kitchen I have a perching stool this enables me to do most things sitting down.
This is how I manage to do bits of washing up at a time or heat something on the hob. Mine came for the NHS equipment stores following an OT assessment. Most health professionals and social workers can refer you to Occupational Therapy for an assessment. some health authorities allow self referral, others don't. The perching stool has adjustable legs allowing it to be high enough to reach your counters or low enough so you can get on it as you can see it also has two handles either side these are quite useful to hold onto to keep your balance if your having to stand for something. For washing up I pre-rinse everything in a hot soapy bowl and then do a few bits at a time, stacking them on the draining board to dry naturally, this reduces the strain on my hands and minimises fatigue.
Onto the next task...Laundry. Doing the laundry is difficult for me. I use a grabber to push and pull washing in and out of the machine and in/out of the tumble dryer.
I really struggle with carry loads of washing so I don't. I have one pop up laundry hamper that once its half full I can drag into the kitchen then use my grabber to move the clothes around. I also use a tumble dryer all year round when I'm doing the laundry myself, this is because I cant carry the washing out into the garden and I really struggle bending over and lifting my arms up to peg the clothes on the line. If April or Dom is available to help they will peg it out for me. I understand that this isn't very cost effective or environmentally friendly but its the only way I've found of doing it
myself without triggering my POTS or causing me additional pain and significant fatigue.
The Grabber is also good for picking up mess and reaching up to do or grab things like closing the curtains or picking something up off a high shelf without losing your balance, especially helpful if I'm in my chair!
Next comes sweeping up mess, sweeping large areas kills me off as does trying to bend down to use a dustpan and brush. I found a long handled dustpan and brush in my local Pound land. its a life saver, especially when I keep dropping things! This is good for small areas but also starts to hurt my hands if I try to use it for larger areas.
Cooking is trickier. I buy most things like my fruit and vegetables ready prepared and frozen, supermarkets have a really good selection now and I have chopped mixed peppers, garlic, spinach, Avacados and berries all ready to go in my freezer.
Unfortunately not everything comes ready prepared, for blending, crushing, chopping and grinding I have a mini blender, there are lots of models out there, B&M sell one for £20 but they are quite similar to the Nutri ninja's
mine comes with containers that have handles and different blades that you screw on the top as the lid.
I also struggle with opening jars and bottles so I have an automatic tin opener and one of these handy things:
You squeeze it round the lid your trying to open and it takes the strain off your hands. This one came free from amazon with my tin opener, unfortunately the tin opener stopped working but this still works really well.
Finally the actual cooking part, I mentioned that I use my perching stool to use the hob. I don't use the cooker as I tend to forget I have anything in there, go off, have a rest, maybe a little sleep then wake up to the smell of burning! Since the day I did that and then left the house I have used a halogen cooker. These beauties sit on your work surface (no bending next to hot oven), you set the temperature and they wont turn on without setting the timer too. When the timer stops the heat turns off. The worst that happens now is overcooked or cold forgotten about food. I love mine and it is well used (you can probably tell).
I'm hoping some of this is helpful, I plan on writing some posts showing my bathroom aids / adaptions and my mobility aids soon. we are quite lucky that new technology is been developed all the time, making different and/or easier ways of doing things.
What's your favourite aid, adaption or energy saving gadget? let me know in the comments below.
Laura :)
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