Everyday tasks when you can't bend or reach
A hip or knee replacement, back surgery, late pregnancy or a shoulder that won't lift can put your feet, the floor and the top shelf out of range. Most everyday tasks can be rearranged so you stay upright: move things to waist height, sit higher, and let long handles do the reaching.
Guides by task
Dressing
Bathroom and grooming
- Showering when you can't bend or reach
- Using the toilet when you can't bend or reach
- Cutting nails when you can't bend or reach
Around the house
Getting around
What to buy first
- Reacher grabber
- Sock aid — A sock aid is a curved sleeve with two long cords that lets you pull a sock onto your foot while sitting upright, without bending down.
- Long-handled shoehorn
- Elastic no-tie laces — Elastic no-tie laces replace ordinary shoelaces with stretchy ones that stay fastened, so lace-up shoes become slip-ons.
- Long-handled sponge
- Long-handled toenail clipper — A long-handled toenail clipper has a cutting head on the end of a long shaft, so you can trim your toenails while sitting upright.
- Raised toilet seat
What changes when you can't bend or reach
Bring things up to you. The floor, low cupboards and high shelves are where the trouble is. Move what you use every day into the band between your waist and your shoulders: socks and underwear in a top drawer, the pan you use most on the stovetop, the laundry basket on a chair, pet food on the counter. If a shoulder is the problem, clear the high shelves the same way.
Let a long handle reach instead of your back. A reacher, a long shoehorn and a sponge on a curved handle cover most of the gaps. They are for light things, like a sock, the remote or a dropped letter. A full bottle or a saucepan is too heavy to hold at the end of a stick; it will slip, or you'll twist to save it.
Sit higher. Lowering yourself into a soft sofa or onto a standard toilet means folding at the hips, and getting up means folding even further to push off. A firm chair with arms, a cushion that doesn't sink, or a raised toilet seat cuts the bend at both ends. If your team gave you a seat height to aim for, measure your chairs, bed and toilet against it.
Dress your lower half sitting down. Sit on a firm chair or the edge of a firm bed, with the day's clothes laid out beside you rather than in a drawer. Get pants and underwear over your feet while seated (a reacher can hook the waistband), bring them up to your knees, and only stand at the end to pull them up. If a therapist showed you which leg goes in first, stick with that.
Plan the move before you make it. Twisting mostly happens halfway through a task, when you reach for something beside or behind you. Set out what you need in front of you first. When you do need to turn, step your feet around rather than turning at the waist, and if something drops, leave it until the reacher is in your hand.
Temporary or for good. After surgery, the precautions your surgical team gave you are often for a set period, and they will tell you when things change. For a few weeks, the simplest working version of each tool is enough, and many communities have loan closets that lend equipment for free. If stiff hips or a bad back are here to stay, buy sturdier tools and make the storage changes permanent.
Common mistakes
- Buying the longest reacher on the shelf. Extra length puts more weight at the far end and makes the jaws wobble, so small things drop just before you get them. From a chair or standing, 26 to 32 inches is plenty for most adults; if you can't hold it out steadily with one hand, it's too long.
- Trusting a suction-cup grab bar. It feels solid when you press it on, but it can let go on textured tile, across a grout line or on a steamy wall, and most are sold for balance only, not to take your weight. Anything you'll lean on or pull up on needs to be screwed into wall studs or proper anchors.
- Waiting until you're home to set up. Moving everyday things up, taking out loose rugs and trying a sock aid for the first time are all much easier before surgery than in your first days back. If the operation is planned, do the walkthrough a week or two ahead.
- Going back to the low, soft armchair. Your favorite chair is often the lowest seat in the house and the hardest to get out of without folding forward. Put a firmer chair with arms in its place for as long as you need it.
- Bending "just this once" for something you dropped. A dropped phone or pill is the bend nobody plans for. Keep a reacher beside each place you sit, so it's always nearer than the floor.