I love your brain

We visited an annual Abilities Expo this past weekend. We’ve been attending it for several years and are always inspired by the variety of offerings, enhancements, technological advances, creations and tools, all designed to promote better accessibility and mobility and to enhance the lives of those with disabilities and challenges.

This is one of my most favorite things we encountered at the Expo:

Such a simple idea yet it’s just new to the market. Yes, there are similar things available but this simple bit of stretchy, strong, pliable plastic can get wet, comes in a variety of sizes and can provide support to hands or fingers trying to grip any number of things. They’re not yet available for retail but we lucked out and were gifted with a couple at the expo.

Cole is excited to cook with them. They will help him grip spoons and spatulas and even a knife (with my assistance too on the knife), allowing him to stir, flip and cut with better precision and accuracy. They’ll be great for art projects and school projects and fun things like banging drums and waving magic wands!

I plan to share them with our school, keep a couple in his backpack, my purse, the car, and at home. I’m sure as we get to using them, we’ll come up with countless ways in which they can improve his grip, hold and management of all sorts of things. I’m beyond excited about the EazyHold bands! (I’ll take some photos of Cole using them when we get started.)

We also saw, and were impressed by, a couple of test cars with rear wheelchair lifts. (We are firm believers in the rear lift!) We have a mini-van that’s been converted to include the rear lift and still has room for two additional passengers with Cole planted right in the middle. It was a life changing purchase for all of us. Although, now that we’ve seen the car with a rear conversion, we’re rethinking our next one! It would be nice to have a smaller vehicle…

We bought Cole’s Chill Out Chair at this expo several years ago (we are, in fact, into our second Chill Out Chair). The excitement of finding a seat that doesn’t have straps or look particularly therapeutic made that year’s visit to the expo worth it. That Blue Chair totally changed Cole’s home routine and comfort.   We bought an adaptive bicycle for him one year too. He used to ride it up and down our sidewalk with a gleeful smile as he’d try to run us over.

The expo is a great way to learn about new things. It’s inspiring to see what’s out there and what’s coming next.