Caregiver Aids #11: Grabbers

The first of these we got as a Christmas present from my sister, probably about 15 years ago. At the time, I thought, why do we need one of these? She thought it would be useful for Skip to reach items on high shelves in cupboards (at this time, Skip was still ambulatory).

That first one probably sat unused for years before we started taking advantage of it. Its usefulness became apparent quickly. Now we have one in the laundry room (next to the kitchen), in the bedroom and hanging from Skip's table that she uses at her wheelchair when in the living room.

Since Skip's hands are numb and her fingers no longer dextrous, she often drops things. These grabbers get called into action multiple times every day. Since I'm the one picking up the item on the floor, they help me a lot.

These grabbers are available all over the internet. I searched on "grabber picker upper" and got a ton of hits, so they're a cinch to find. We did once buy a model that had opposing suction cups at the end rather than the grabber design shown in the photo. This item proved to be useless (at least for us), because the cups kept sticking together.