How to Make Mealtime Easier with Assistive Dining Aids

You like being sociable. You like spending time with family and friends, and what better way to pass your time with people you enjoy than to break bread together? If you are elderly, disabled, or simply find mealtimes difficult--you should not have to miss out on all the joy, laughter, and conversation that mealtime provides. Take advantage of assistive devices for dining and you can once again enjoy eating with your friends and family.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Adapted Bowls and Plates
• Special Utensil Holders
• Non-slip mats

1. Use adapted dishes to make it easier to scoop your food onto a fork or spoon. Adapted bowls and plates are smart. They have partitions to keep the corn away from the potatoes; lips and guards to prevent food from sliding off the side as you try to get it on your spoon; and ingenious warmers activated by hot water to keep everything toasty. Or is it the plate and bowl itself that seems to slide around? Now there are plates with suction-padded bases to keep the dish firm and steady while you cut or scoop your food.
2. Try special utensil holders for diners with painful arthritic hands or limited (or no) grasping ability. Forks, knives, and spoons seem almost diabolically designed to tax a person's hand strength. Persons with arthritis especially find it difficult to hold onto a fork for any extended period of time--if at all. Manufacturers of adapted eating devices are well aware of this, and have pulled out all stops to provide a wide variety of straps, clips, and holders to assist with handling eating utensils. Most of these holders are so efficient that no finger strength at all is needed: the hand and the holder alone do the work.
3. Look into specialty dining items to help with your specific problem. For instance, you're out to breakfast with some good friends. You order toast, and your lips are already watering as you contemplate the tasty raspberry jam. Question is: how do you spread the jam with your one good hand, without the bread sliding all over? Simple. You've got a clever little device called a Spreadboard tucked away in your purse. Two lips hook over the side of the table, while on top there are two guards that hold the bread in place. Spread away! One hand is all you need. Whatever your specific problem is, chances are good that a product has been developed just for you. From rocking knives made for one handed users to super-long flexible drinking straws for those with no use of either hand, help is usually available if you look for it.

Tips & Warnings

• Eating with friends and family will keep you from feeling isolated and lonely.
• Don't be embarrassed by your limitations!
• Maintain a sense of humor.