Front Porch: Need help? There's a gadget for that - The Spokesman Review

What an amazing world of gadgets we live in.

I’ve come to understand that if there’s some issue or problem you have, there’s likely a gadget out there to assist with it. And if you don’t know if there is something available to help you, just Google a few words describing the need and – lo and behold – solutions arise. Some are junk, of course, but often there’s a gem to be discovered.

I’m in an age demographic in which those items tend to focus on helping us live our lives more conveniently, but I’ve found they are ubiquitous through the generations for everything from hobbies to infant care.

But back to the needs of those I’m most familiar with – old folks. A brief and most casual survey among a few friends yielded some of the best, as well as some under the category of I-didn’t-know-that-was-even-a-thing.

The most obvious is the grabber tool for getting items off tall shelves or picking things up off the floor. There is a dressing stick, which has two L-shaped hooks on one end to help get the second sleeve of a coat over your shoulder. And one of my friends swears by this stand-on-the-floor beauty that enables her to put her socks on without undue strain.

And I love how these things can come in one-size-fits-all versions. Need a shoe horn, sometimes for short reach and sometimes for extended reach? You can get a telescoping one. Easy peasy. Canes, for some time, have moved from carved wooden items with curved handles to telescoping versions of metal or hard plastic. Same for walking poles.

But there are two I’ve learned about that are just slap-on-the-forehead delightful.

One friend told me about a bathing issue. She cannot bend over well and has difficulties washing between her toes. She’s tried various solutions, but nothing has done the trick.

Finally, she Googled it. She tried a few combinations of words, then hit on “toe cleaning issues.” Wowzah. Options galore. What an assortment of brushes (different materials and firmness), handles and costs. A panoply of choices arose before her.

She selected a modest item, with a handle of the appropriate length and the type of brush that seemed appropriate, factoring in scratchiness and ticklishness.

Seems a good bit of thought had to go into the myriad options available.

I’ve checked back with her. She’s happy with her purchase and the cleanliness of her toes.

And the other item, a throwback to how grandpa did things in the early 1900s, lives in my own home.

As I have written about before, my husband suffers from hearing loss. And like many people (I want to say “many men,” but I’m trying to not further the gender wars), he is less than faithful in wearing his hearing aids.

What with wearing glasses and a face mask and sometimes a respirator for his work, he’s constantly knocking them off his ears. But he hardly wears them when those other things aren’t in play either. The hearing issue is more than just volume and background noise, it’s also clarity of the words being spoken to him.

He often wears a headset (which we call his “ears”) when watching TV, which is helpful, but the downside is that he can’t hear anything else at the time – such as comments from his wife, the doorbell ringing, other house sounds that might need tending to, but most important, the previously mentioned comments from his wife.

He finds himself taking the headset on and off often during a program to respond to his wife, who frequently pokes him or flaps her arms in big swoops like a buzzard to get his attention.

He was watching TV recently without his ears on and cupped his hands behind his ears, just like grandpa used to do when he wanted to hear better. And … he actually heard better (not great, but noticeably improved). It was quite a revelation.

So, on a lark, I wandered around the internet to learn about that phenomenon, how cupping hands behind the ears helps snag and funnel more sound waves into the ear. While doing so, I found, believe it or not, an inexpensive low-tech app for that.

There are plastic ear cups available you can purchase that are held in place behind the ear with a tie under the chin and over the head, which, if they do as advertised, will improve sound reception (somewhat important) while allowing for improved interrupted-TV-viewing communication with spouse (most important).

Does it work? Don’t know yet. There is a set on its way to our house at this very moment, so stay tuned.

Adblock test (Why?)

"gadget" - Google News
August 25, 2022 at 07:02PM
https://ift.tt/dpxOrYC

Front Porch: Need help? There's a gadget for that - The Spokesman Review
"gadget" - Google News
https://ift.tt/S4HKct9


Bagikan Berita Ini