Button aids - has anyone tried one?

Indie_Kid

I will mention this to the OT when I see her next week.

Has anyone used a button aid? I'm finding shirt buttons difficult to undo and this has been suggested for me. I have tried doing up the shirt and then putting the shirt over my head - doesn't quite work.

kazzah60

Hi SH1305
my ds has tried these as he only has the use of one hand - he hasn't had huge success with them it has to be said - I think they are quite fiddly - of course he is a 19 year old boy,and doesn't have much patience with anything really- so it could just be him!

He prefers to wear T shirts wherever possible and when he needs a formal shirt he gets someone else to do the buttons up and pulls it over his head- but as you say- it isn't ideal and to be honest he's ripped quite a few shirts doing it that way!

wolfehouse

could you put velcro on underneath (to do up the shirt)
and resew the buttons back on top to be just decorative?

Indie_Kid

wolfehouse wrote: »

could you put velcro on underneath (to do up the shirt)
and resew the buttons back on top to be just decorative?

This does sound like a good idea. Thank you

sfmedusa

I gave up on things for buttons I'm afraid, so now I choose to buy things which have a little stretch in them and will fit over my head. I'm fairly good at doing buttons up when they're on a garment I'm already wearing, as long as they're somewhere I can reach with my good hand, but doing buttons on garments which are on coat hangers is very frustrating as the things just will not hold still!

For jeans and trouser buttons you can have a very good substitute by having a flat metal loop and a strip of velcro which folds back on itself through the metal loop for binding, if you can picture what I mean by that. You can make it even more secure by following along with a belt afterwards to hold it shut. Many belts are really easy to manage one handed.

I may have better manual dexterity in my good hand than others though. In the last medical I had I demonstrated how to tie shoe laces one handed and was told that the doctor would mark me down as unable to tie laces as that is a key test of two handed ability (even though I'd just shown that it can be done perfectly well, if a little looser than intended, with one hand).