Ease-of-Use: Rexam 1-Clic Prescription Vial

   

The Arthritis Foundation’s Ease-of-Use Commendation recognizes products proven to make life easier for people who have arthritis and other physical limitations. These products are independently tested by experts and evaluated by people with arthritis. I have been asked to review a number of Ease-of-Use products during May, Arthritis Awareness Month in the US. My mother, who has moderate osteoarthritis in her hands, is helping by testing some of these products, as well. 

Have you ever get bested by a bottle of prescription medication? Y’know the childproof ones that require you to hold the cap down and turn at the same time. I've never been able to open those. And there you are, pain shooting into the stratosphere, the meds that can help you so near, yet so far away. Wouldn't it be nice if someone invented a bottle for prescription medication that was easier to use?

Well, someone has. More specifically, Rexam developed the 1-Clic Packaging System and it has received a Arthritis Foundation Ease-of-Use Commendation. Aside from the audible click that tells you whether the bottle is properly closed, this brilliant invention approaches a secure prescription bottle in another way. To open this one, you press down the tab just below the cap and turn the cap with your other hand.

Lucy was part of the assessment

"That’s easy!" Said my mother upon trying it. I believe that for the majority of people with arthritis, it would be. Very easy, as well as childproof in the same way that the regular prescription vials are.

However, for people like myself who live on the extreme end of the continuum with severe damage and deformity in their hands and very limited strength and dexterity, it may not be. I had a lot of trouble to pressing the tab. My left thumb could do it, but it hurt and as for my right thumb? Fuhgeddaboudit. My pharmacist gives me this type of caps on my vials, but they could be problematic if you have kids in the house.

Overall, this product is a definite improvement on what's previously been available.

edit: there have been a couple of comments remarking on how this tab system looks hard for aching fingers. I want to clarify that I think you have to be very wrecked in order not to be able to use it. My thumb joints are just that: very wrecked and unstable to boot. I think my problem relates more to the instability than the pain and other damage. It's worth giving it a try to see if it'd work for you - once the tab's down even a tiny bit, the cap turns easily.

Other bloggers involved in reviewing Ease-of-Use products are Felicia Fibro, Peachy Pains and Dog in the Dorm: Life with Holden.

A HealthCentral Collection

   

It's been really busy around here lately, so I haven't had time to give you links to my recent HealthCentral articles. Therefore, you get three for the price of one! May is Arthritis Awareness Monthly in the US and we therefore have a lot of things on the go on HealthCentral's RA site.

First, and most importantly, our spectacular, wonderful, fabulous RA Awareness Contest! This runs through the month of May - deadline for entering is May 31 11:59 PM ET. It has some pretty terrific prizes - three Visa cards  ($275, $150 and $75) that you can spend a medication, chocolate, books or whatever heals you the most at that moment. Not only can you win a prize, but this contest also has real potential for changing the world! Each entry is an idea for building bridges and raising awareness about RA. We hope that at the end of the month, we will have a long list of doable, practical ways of taking action to create community and raise awareness.

The second post is Awareness and Action with The Arthritis Foundation. It includes an interview with Dr. Patience White, VP of Public Help for The Arthritis Foundation, as well an interview with the mother of this year's Arthritis Walk Youth Honorees. The honorees are Amelia and Liberty Shultz, who both have RA. And they are four and two and a half years old. This article also includes information about some pretty exciting initiatives the Foundation is launching this month.

My most recent post is Show Us Your Hands!: A Story of Hope and Community. In it, I interview RA Guy, Cathy and myself about SUYH and our recent photo book Our Hands Can! Yes, I interviewed myself. It was a little weird.

    

Muscat Grapes

  

   

Reachers

  

This is the first post in a new series on helpful tools and doodads for people with RA and disability. 

When we first came to Canada 30 years ago, I brought a reacher with me. It was a terrific reacher - lightweight, elegant and easy to use. During my time in Canada, I've had a number of occupational therapists in my home and they have always collapsed in swoons about this particular reacher. Why? Because it is designed to hold closed. This was new to them because in North America, reachers are designed in such a way that you have to squeeze the handle shut in order to close the tongs at the other end.

This is difficult to describe, so I took some pictures. First, my trusty 30-year-old reacher from Denmark.

As you can see, this reacher is also in two pieces. It was a terrific piece of equipment, sturdy and durable. It gave me 30 years of frequent, sometimes daily use, picking up pieces of paper, pens, food containers, fruit and everything else you can imagine. I used it to turn the heat and AC up and down, cleaned up cat puke with it and threw it on the floor to use with my feet in a sweeping motion under bookshelves and the couch to get at the toy mice that Lucy enjoys whacking under things. It was only when I accidentally drove over it in my 300+ pound wheelchair that it gave up the ghost and even then, not for another few weeks.

So I set out looking for another reacher and this is where things got difficult. Because this is when I realized why every OT I'd ever met was in raptures. Meet the North American reacher.

In my view, there are two things wrong with this type of reacher. The first is the design. Could you get more utilitarian and hospital-like? This is an important tool that many people will want to have it easily available in several rooms of their house. This means it will be visible. How about making it nice to look at, as well as functional? According to one of my miracle repair guys, Scandinavia is generally more focused on design in mobility devices and aids for daily living. That theory seems to be borne out by my original, 30-year-old reacher.

Second, and very basic, the North American reacher suffers the same problem that I often invoke when speaking of the Ontario Building Code. Namely, that it is designed for largely able-bodied people who have trouble reaching the floor.

For most people, their mobility problems are not limited to only the legs, but also affect their upper body, including arms, hands and fingers. The North American reacher requires you to hold the tongs closed by squeezing the handle and continuing to do so until you have finished the task. This assumes you have decent or even normal grip strength. You can – if you look hard enough – find a version of the North America reacher that has a locking mechanism, but as far as I can tell, that assumes that you have fairly normal dexterity and can easily use both hands as you're wielding this contraption. As for disengaging the lock, on this model, it's described as "[a] flip of the thumb releases the lock." Uh-huh. That assumes that you can flip your thumb.

Dear designers of aids to daily living: May I introduce you to your target audience. Y’know… the ones who have disabilities?

It boggles the mind.

Anyway, since I do not have normal grip strength (not by a long shot) and since the deformities in my hands mean that I cannot open my hand wide enough to get it around the "pistol grip" closing mechanism - or for that matter have the dexterity to use such a pistol grip (which assumes you can bend your fingers) - I needed something else. I vaguely recalled seeing something like my old reacher in a catalogue several years ago when I was chatting to one of the other staff in my wheelchair repair place (they not only sell and repair wheelchairs, but also other medical supplies and aids for daily living). I called her up and described the item in the catalog as being "on the right page, and it's a photo of three reachers in red, green and yellow." Based on that, she found what I was looking for

Elegant, funky, easy to operate for people who have a disability in their hands. Opens easily, even if you have limited manual mobility, dexterity and strength. Once you grip whatever you're picking up, you let go of the lever in the handle and it holds tightly shut on it own. Also incredibly sturdy compared to the North American version, which (to be honest) are kind of crap. Of course, if you compare the price of around $25 for the reacher that I can't use to the $143 for the imported Swedish reacher, it's a bit of a difference. But I'm pretty sure this one is going to last me another 30 years, so in the long run, it's a steal!

    

This reacher is by Sammons Preston (I think they’re the importer – the Swedish name’s different) and you can get it here - $99 in the US. Well worth it. You may also want to read Marianna's post about other considerations when getting a reacher.

   

A Spring Walk

   

Spring has hit Toronto. Everywhere you look, there's green leaves, tulips, more green leaves and it is glorious! Also rather allergy-inducing, but when it's this pretty, you put up with not being able to breathe through your nose, wheezing and teary eyes.

I took a walk this weekend, out among the life and found there was a lot of it. This is downtown of a major urban centre? Yes, it is...

I found tulips that went from yellow with red to red with yellow and then all the way to red

These looked like little cups of sunshine

 

All the trees are in various stages of pop

 

I also made my way down to Berczy Park, a little slice of heaven framed by Old and New Toronto. 

met a couple of pigeons who were either best friends or in love. Or both.

 These beauties look like ballerinas

I don't know what these are called, but they look like clusters of blue bells - you can almost hear a far-away tinkle. Or maybe they're fairy ballgowns...

and finally... this makes it official. The poplars have popped.   

   

  

Behind the Scenes

   

I am a very lucky woman.

A little over four months ago, RA Guy, Cathy and I decided we wanted to work together, leapfrogging off of RA Guy’s wonderful community collage. What exactly we were going to do was still up in the air. By the time we settled into an official structure, discussed options for our next project and decided what that project was going to be, it was February.

And now, a mere three months later, we have released Our Hands Can!, a photo book featuring stories and images of very capable hands that also happen to have a form of inflammatory arthritis.

Those two paragraphs don't begin to capture the magic of this project.

The first part of the magic is the Show Us Your Hands! team. Every now and again, I meet a person who feels known to me already, as if we were old friends from a previous life and now just have to get to know the surface structure that we are wearing in this one. Through a crazy happenstance, I have ended up working with not one, but two people who I'm sure have been my friends for decades. We clicked in so many ways, starting with the way we approach our RA.

And they are evil friends. Enabling friends. I don't remember ever working this hard. I really thought I was working as much as I possibly could with my regular roster of HealthCentral/The Book/committees and whatnot. I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Because another way in which the Show Us Your Hands! team clicked was the way we all tend to get a tiny bit caught up in work. And as we hypered each other into a frenzy, we balanced file syncing notifications popping up like mad, multiple simultaneous e-mail conversations, consultations regarding photo, editing, and design choices and a multitude of other tasks like a team of circus plate spinners. It was a bit of a blur, both from within and, I'm told from loved ones, from those looking on, as well.

But it wasn't just about us coming together in a perfect storm of workaholism. This was about a project that was meaningful, inspiring and important. Every photo from every participant moved us, often to tears. Every story told of resilience, strength and the determination to continue living life, no matter what. Each profile on its own is powerful, but when we put it all together and I clicked through the final draft on my monitor, I got chills. I fully expect to bawl like a baby when I hold my copy of Our Hands Can! in my hands.

Creating this book was pure joy. Working closely with a group of participants to guide them through photography and writing was a privilege and I hope that each and every one of "my peeps" will continue to be part of my life. And finding two friends who also make great project partners has been like winning the lottery. In the near future, we will be going forward with our application to become a nonprofit and I can't wait to dive into other exciting projects with Cathy and RA Guy.

Okay, so maybe I can wait a little while. I need to rest first. We all need to rest.

Our Hands Can! is available in both hardcover and softcover. And if you missed the preview yesterday, here it is again. Because I'm such an extreme nerd that I keep clicking through it, getting all verklempt

  

Our Hands Can! by Show Us Your Hands!

Show Us Your Hands! Releases Our Hands Can! Photo Book in Celebration of Arthritis Awareness Month

  

    

(May 7, 2012) – Show Us Your Hands! is pleased to announce the release of its Our Hands Can! photo book, the latest in a series of successful initiatives aimed at uniting the community of individuals who are living with inflammatory arthritis and increasing the public’s awareness of this group of autoimmune diseases. This photo book contains the inspiring photographs and moving stories of dozens of people of all ages from around the world who live with different types of inflammatory arthritis and is being released today in celebration of Arthritis Awareness Month.

May is National Arthritis Awareness Month in the United States. Its goal is to bring attention to the issues and realities faced by people who live with one of the more than 100 different types of arthritis. More than 46 million people live with arthritis in the US, including 300,000 children. It is the most common cause of disability.

The Our Hands Can! photo book is available for purchase at Blurb in both hardcover format and softcover format. “Being part of this has made me feel proud of who I am with rheumatoid arthritis and all for the first time in a long time,” says Samantha Legere, who is profiled in the photo book. Founding director Lene Andersen adds, “Our Hands Can! is a tangible affirmation that all of us who live with inflammatory arthritis find a way to live meaningful, productive and joyful lives. Our hands may hurt and bear the visible signs of our disease, but it doesn't stop us!” All funds raised from the sale of these photo books go to Show Us Your Hands!, an international awareness movement which serves to unite and inspire the inflammatory arthritis community.

The Show Us Your Hands! inflammatory arthritis community collage project debuted in December 2011. People of all ages from around the world are represented in this community project and new photos continue to be added to on a regular basis. The community collage project serves not only as a symbol of the wonderfully supportive inflammatory arthritis community that continues to grow and connect online, but also acts as a reminder that people who live with these diseases should be proud of, and not ashamed of, their inflammatory arthritis hands. By April 2011, the Show Us Your Hands! inflammatory arthritis community collage project had grown to include more than 1,000 hands.

Autoimmune diseases occur when a body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. In the case of inflammatory arthritis, a person’s joints are frequently attacked, resulting in chronic pain and debilitating inflammation. The most common inflammatory arthritis diseases are Ankylosing Spondylitis, Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, Psoriatic Arthritis, Reactive Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Scleroderma, Sjogren's Syndrome, Still's Disease and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Show Us Your Hands! is an international awareness movement which serves to unite and inspire the inflammatory arthritis community. For more information, please visit www.showusyourhands.org. Show Us Your Hands! can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

    

Our Hands Can! by RA Guy, Cathy, and Lene | Make Your Own Book