Life hacks are adaptations. They adapt a process of a chore to make that chore more efficient for an individual. It’s an adaptation. People with disabilities constantly adapt activities of daily living to make life easier to manage, often leading to more autonomous and/or independence – many times with adaptive devices. An activity of daily living is any routine task that is part of every day living. For example, eating and bathing. IADLs are more complex every day tasks like shopping, housework and organization, pet care and more.
Both able bodied people and disabled people have routines. People with disabilities and those caring for and working with people with disabilities often create adaptive devices in order to establish more autonomy and independence. Here are 5 items everyone uses that are everyday adaptations and tools for people with disabilities.
Velcro
Velcro acts as on adaptive clothing a fastener for people with low dexterity in their hands, normally instead of buttons. Velcro is easier to fasten shoes than tying shoes for those with poor fine motor abilities. Velcro fastens items easily on wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches.
Bendy straws
Bendy Straws were created to help patients in hospitals to be able to easily sip liquid. The use of a straw is so important for many people with disabilities. Plastic straws are vital for many who do not have the ability to keep their straws clean for use (metal and bamboo straws are hard to clean), they’re important because metal straws can get too hot and can cause burns. Reusable straws sometimes have gluten, a problem for people with Celiac Disease. Reusable straws can also break, causing injury. A bendy straw is usually the best way for a person with low dexterity and suction to consume liquids.
Smart Homes and Voice Assistants
I use a smart home for the essential lights in my apartment. It is a high tech option and takes an investment, but I can turn on and off my lights without having to be able to reach for them. One of my lamps is in an area I can’t reach in my wheelchair, but I can still turn on that light with my smart home app or by voice activation. It is important for people who do not have full functionality of their hands.
My washer and dryer are smart devices – and honestly my favorite appliances I own. I can start my washer and dryer remotely. They are also front facing, so I can easily reach into my washer and dryer to do laundry. A feature on my washer and dryer set is app notifications (I have a terrible habit of forgetting to change the laundry over). This helps people with short term memory, deaf and hard of hearing who cannot hear an audio alert, and generally just planning for those who need to plan when they can get up and move around or who are caring for people with disabilities.
Siri
On the topic of Smart home, Siri/Alexa and other voice assistants are very important to people with visual or mobility impairments These voice assistants allow someone to search for anything on the internet with their voice. They can ask for Siri to read them a recipe… give directions… nearly anything even if they do not have function in their upper extremities… It’s not just for lazy people. It’s a useful tool if you use these features the way many people who are disabled use their devices.
Keyboards and texting
Staying in the technology adaptive devices, the inventor of keyboards isn’t quite clear. There is an account of an Italian who created a machine for a blind Countess. Letters stamped on carbon paper are stored in state archives. Regardless, mechanical keyboards can be used for communication.
TTY for the deaf and hard of hearing is a concept widely used prior to texting. It still exists, but in today’s world we use SMS text messaging. TTY is an early system to relay text through a telephone to connect the deaf community with hearing people.
SMS began in the mid 90s, but did not take off until the 2000s with the wide use of cell phones. In 2001, a project in Europe began to ensure deaf people could easily use SMS texting, and now billions of people use texting to communicate. Be honest, who actually answers phone calls anymore?
Subtitles
I don’t know a single person my age who doesn’t use subtitles when watching Netflix or YouTube. Closed captioning, is a service ivital for hearing impaired people or those with audio processing issues. Live captioning is important for inclusion in live current events. Now it’s just a nice feature on videos and apps, but it’s been a feature for a long time.
I just wish movie theaters would have on screen captions on their movies at least once a day so the deaf and hard of hearing community doesn’t have to try to work a closed captioning device. They’re hard to get sometimes depending on the theater and sometimes they just don’t work. But I think as a society, we like captions and theaters need to notice this is a good option.
Bonus Adaptive Device
I know I said five items, but here’s a bonus one – audiobooks. How many people have a subscription to Audible? How many people listen to audiobooks during commutes or workouts? Audiobooks are an adaptation used for many different disabilities, and have been for a while. Recordings of lectures in schools, an audio version of books or reports are normally available and now they’re very widely available as a format to consume a book. I am not an audiobook shamer. If you listen to an audiobook you are, in fact, enjoying a book. I personally cannot pay attention to an audiobook and need to read it on paper, but I love that audiobooks are widely available.