At Kapok, we’re always looking for ways to improve the caregiving experience. Sometimes doing so involves finding financial or practical support. Other times, it may be a shift in the way you do things, such as setting boundaries.
But often, it’s simply about finding the right tool for the job. The right caregiving products.
That’s a big part of life, isn’t it? Using a screwdriver for a screw makes everything simple. Use a hammer instead and nothing goes as it should.
Finding what you need for day-to-day life is simple enough. Doing so is more complex with caregiving, as this is a new situation with different needs and complications, including many that aren’t talked about often.
This post is a starting point.
We’re highlighting the most useful product types and individual items that make caregiving much easier. There are affiliate links throughout the post, but these do not increase your cost and we only ever promote products that we’re truly passionate about (you can find more details on our disclaimer page)
Our Favorite Caregiving Products
- Adaptive Aids for Safety and Independence
- Tools for Mobility
- Incontinence Supplies
- Activities and Gifts
- Food and Nutrition
- When You’re Caring for Dementia Patients
- Apps
- Books for Caregiving
Adaptive Aids for Safety and Independence
Some of the basic tasks of living start to get more difficult as people age. Getting up from a seat, cleaning oneself, eating, and even using the bathroom are a few common examples.
Adaptive aids (sometimes called adaptive tools, devices, or equipment) help to bridge the gap. Many promote independence, helping the senior to meet their own needs for longer, rather than relying on external support.
There are adaptive products for almost every need you can imagine, so we can’t list them all here. Instead, we’re focusing on our personal favorites.
Our Top 5:
Grab Bars. These bars are best installed using screws and can be powerful for preventing falls. While they’re most common in the bathroom, they’re also relevant in other rooms, giving seniors extra support and leverage while moving around.
A Raised Toilet Seat. Raising seats is often helpful, making it easier for seniors to get up and down. This is particularly relevant for toilets, as difficulty using them may make seniors more reluctant to try, raising the risk of incontinence accidents.
Furniture Risers. These simple tools go under furniture to increase its height, making it easier for seniors to get up and down. They’re much cheaper than having to buy new furniture.
Button Hook and Zipper Pull. This is another simple device. It’s designed to make dressing easier for people with arthritis in their hands (or any other condition that decreases hand dexterity).
Bathroom Stools and Transfer Benches. Stools make it easy for seniors to sit while they have a shower, while transfer benches are useful for helping to get over the high lip of a bath.
For more details on adaptive aids, check out our posts on tools for specific situations, including:
Tools for Mobility
Some tools are designed to make mobility much easier.
The most obvious of these are wheelchairs, walkers, and canes, which work with different mobility levels and in different situations.
However, there are other tools as well, including the following.
- Portable car handles are easy to use and provide extra leverage for getting into and out of cars.
- Lightweight portable seats are helpful for seniors who struggle with walking long distances. They’re particularly good when you don’t know whether there will be suitable seats. Some products, like this one, even double as a walking stick.
- Good shoes, socks, and slippers, particularly those that have decent grips, to the senior is less likely to fall.
- Grabbers. These tools extend a senior’s reach and can also be useful if their ability to grip is limited.
Incontinence Supplies
This isn’t a fun topic, but needs to be talked about.
The most obvious incontinence products are liners and briefs. Briefs often have better absorbency, but they’re less discrete than pads and can be more difficult to change.
However, there are some other very important products.
Our Top 5:
Absorbent Underpads (like Chux). These pads can be placed pretty much anywhere and soak up any leaks. They’re excellent for saving furniture and making cleanup easier. You might use them even if a senior already uses an incontinence product, as pads and liners sometimes fail to catch everything.
Booster Pads. These pads complement most adult incontinence products by providing extra absorbency. This absorbency is crucial, as the manufacturer’s absorbency claims aren’t always accurate, especially if you lose a lot of urine fast.
Odor Removal Products. Incontinence often leads to smells that linger. Many cleaning products are designed to combat these smells and are often very effective at doing so. This discussion on the AgingCare forums highlights some useful products and approaches.
Wipes. You’ll also need plenty of wipes for fast and easy cleanup. Disposable wash cloths and baby wipes work well. Some caregivers use regular face cloths and wash them exceptionally well.
Extras of Everything. Incontinence can mean plenty of extra laundry loads, particularly of clothes and bedsheets. You’ll need backups and backups for those backups, as the unexpected often happens.
For example, some caregivers talk about the senior having two incontinence accidents in the same night, which require two sheet changes. This would quickly be an issue if you only had two clean pairs of sheets.
Also, there’s often a trial-and-error aspect to incontinence. It takes time to find the right style, size, and absorbency for the person’s needs – and those needs may change over time. Many caregivers find that seniors need to use a combination of products, like incontinence underwear with an added booster pad.
Activities and Gifts
We’re lumping these two together, as many activities can be given as gifts (with a little creativity) and many gifts have an activity component.
Activities are powerful for seniors, as they often have a lot of time on their hands.
Many have spent much of their life working and raising kids. Being retired, perhaps with limited mobility and experiencing the death of friends can be difficult. Activities, particularly meaningful ones, can improve the quality of life and promote better mental health.
Our Top 5:
High Quality Headphones. Headphones can make it easier for seniors to enjoy their favorite music, movies, and shows, without disturbing everyone else (which is powerful when they’re hard of hearing).
Wireless headphones are particularly good, as there’s nothing for seniors to trip over. However, seniors who aren’t tech savvy may prefer headphones with a cord, as these are much easier to connect.
These high-volume headphones are an excellent starting point, offering quality sound, a considerable range, and comfort, without being too expensive.
Finders Seekers. This is an escape room subscription from Cratejoy. It might sound like an odd choice, but the subscription provides an unusual family game night every month. This is the perfect way to break up boredom and spend some time together.
Adults & Crafts Crate. This subscription is perfect for helping seniors to find new passions. It ships out a different craft project each month, complete with materials, tools, and instructions.
Red Velvet NYC. Here’s a subscription for bakers. It ships out all the ingredients and instructions for gourmet baking. There’s no need for grocery shopping, as the only excluded ingredient is eggs.
Travel Through Music. This subscription box is more involved and extravagant than most (and only ships out once every three months). It provides a unique travel and musical experience, all from the comfort of your own home.
Food and Nutrition
Eating well is an essential part of staying healthy. It can also be tricky for seniors, as appetite often decreases with age and chewing can get more difficult too.
There’s also cooking to think about. Some seniors start to struggle with cooking food safely or are simply unwilling to cook healthy meals for themselves. Cooking for them can get overwhelming, particularly if they’re a picky eater or if you’re very short on time and energy.
Our Top 5:
Meal delivery services, like Fresh n Lean. These services ship out fully prepared meals that often taste great and are nutritious. Some Medicare Advantage plans even cover particular types of meal delivery services.
Instant Pot. This tool is one of the most powerful additions to your kitchen, as it helps you prepare delicious hands-off meals quickly.
Protein Powders and Shakes. Protein shakes are an easy way for seniors to consume more nutrients, particularly if they have minimal appetite. Low sugar shakes work well, as they shouldn’t spike the senior’s blood sugar or lead to excess weight gain.
Targeted Recipes. Meals for seniors are often ‘same old, same old’. These can be spiced up using the right recipes. We’ve featured a variety of powerful recipes in our roundups. Many of these have focused on specific needs, like foods that can be eaten without teeth and meals that can be prepared ahead of time.
A Slow Cooker. If you can’t afford an Instant Pot, why not get a slow cooker from a local second hand store? While slow cookers don’t have all the same functions as an Instant Pot, they still let you make delicious meals without much effort.
When You’re Caring for Dementia Patients
Dementia caregiving comes with its own set of challenges, especially as the disease progresses.
Many of these challenges come from the fact that dementia can lead to behavioral changes, impaired decision making, emotional outbursts, confusion, and memory issues. Such patterns mean a dementia patient can’t be reasoned with in the way a regular patient can be.
While no product can fix these issues, some can make your caregiving experience a touch easier.
Our Top 5:
A GPS Tracker. Dementia patients often wander and can put themselves in danger. While a tracker may seem invasive, it can also literally save their life. The GPS SmartSole is one of the easiest and most discreet options.
The 36 Hour Day. This is a book that specifically focuses on dementia and dementia care. It’s thick and a bit overwhelming at times, but gives caregivers a huge amount of information about every stage of dementia and what the condition can look like.
Creating Moments of Joy. This is a dementia book, but follows a completely different style to the previous one. The goal here is to help people cope with dementia caregiving, to actually find joyful moments, and to manage mentally.
Dolls and Pets. Some dementia patients do well with interactive pets and dolls, particularly those that are life-like (such as this orange tabby cat). Such products really can be comforting, especially as some will move or make noises based on what the user does.
Dementia Puzzles and Games. While dementia patients can’t engage in all the activities they did earlier in life, there are still plenty of products they can enjoy, including dementia puzzles.
Some companies specialize in this area, offering products designed to keep dementia patients engaged, regardless of how far the condition has progressed. Relish is an outstanding company to start with, as they offer a range of researched and well-designed products.
If you’re interested in The 36 Hour Day or Creating Moments of Joy, then I recommend using Kindle’s book preview option to get a sense of them first. While both books are very popular, they don’t work well for everyone. It’s worth seeing if they suit you before you invest any money in them.
Apps
Apps are getting increasingly better designed and more specific. Plus, you probably have a smartphone or tablet on hand much of the time, so why not take advantage of it?
Different apps help in different ways. Some focus on caregiving specifically, providing solutions to problems that others don’t face. Others are broader, but still provide powerful tools for caregivers.
Our Top 5:
Medito. Medito is a meditation and mindfulness app. It’s not as elegant or comprehensive as famous ones like Balance and Calm, but it is still impressive and is entirely free. This is important, as many other apps in this field are incredibly expensive.
Ianacare. The iana in ianacare stands for ‘I am not alone’ and the app maintains this focus by helping caregivers to get practical and emotional support from a care network. While we haven’t reviewed the app here on Kapok, it does get excellent reviews and has plenty of features.
Google Calendar. Simple and familiar, Google Calendar allows you to easily keep track of appointments. You can also share calendars with family members, making it easy to coordinate appointments.
Sparkle. Sparkle is a self-care/habits app and is much more customizable than most. It simply focuses on the things that make you feel good. It’s a good style for caregivers, as you can use it to remind you of what helps, rather than as a daily to-do list.
Medisafe Pill Reminder App. Pill reminder apps help seniors (and caregivers!) to remember to take medications on time. This is particularly important for seniors with chronic conditions who need multiple types of medication. The Medisafe Pill Reminder app is just one example, although it’s a particularly good one.
There are a few other apps designed for caregiving specifically, including Circle Of, and Caring Village. While these apps have interesting features, they have been designed by relatively small companies. As such, they sometimes have issues with limited reliability and irregular updates.
Books for Caregiving
We have a detailed post on books for caregivers, so we’ll only talk about a few here.
Setting Boundaries with Your Aging Parents. There are plenty of books on boundaries, but this book is one of the few that puts the discussion in a caregiving context.
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. While this book has a business focus, it’s my favorite one for conversational skills. The authors give fantastic examples and make everything very easy to follow.
Multicultural Guide to Caregiving. This book is special, as it was written by Angelica here at Kapok and considers how families from different cultures can navigate care and caregiving in the United States.
When Life Hits Hard. Finally, there’s this book (also called Reality Slap). It teaches an approach called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, in relation to times when life is overwhelmingly difficult.
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