Therapists/Professionals

Interested in how our products are used in rehab and in day-to-day life? It’s all here from recovery post-stroke and spinal cord injury to day-to-day household tasks & learning to drum!

Adapt and Conquer!

Phillippa using a Limb Difference aid on rowing machine in the gym

Philippa shares a flat with a housemate on the outskirts of London, and loves running, hiking, dancing and seeing friends. In her early thirties Philippa found herself returning home from hospital after losing her fingers. She was so relieved that the pain had ended that she hadn’t even considered the impact this new disability would have on her life. She so loves being active that she went on a cycling holiday in France in between operations on her hand! When her surgery was done, she had lost three fingers and part of her palm on her left hand and two…

Top 10 Summer LifeHacks

Everyone loves a good life-hack. Here at Active Hands we’ve scoured through life-hacks for poor hand function and now we can proudly say we stock more than 25 of the best products we’ve come across (as well as our own wonderful gripping aids!). Back in December we shared with you our top 10 winter disability life-hack products, so 6-months later it must be time for a summer edition! So here, for you to muse over, are our top 10 summer life-hacks! #1 Automatic Bottle Opener – heading into summer, social occasions can be many and often. With this bottle opener…

Getting to grips with cooking can be really challenging with reduced hand function – it can be hard to feel independent when it comes to making meals or enjoying baking. Earlier in the year, we set Nino, a quad/tetraplegic from Slovenia, the challenge of baking us something delicious, completely independently, using kitchen products from our website. And we can’t stop watching the result! As Nino shows, with the right tools, the kitchen can become accessible and you can discover a passion for cooking. All of the products Nino uses are available to buy on our shop page. To help you get…

Reacher/ grabber for quadriplegics being used by woman in wheelchair to reach high shelf

Always on the lookout for new, well-designed and high-quality solutions for those with reduced hand function, we were especially excited when we came across our latest product. Reaching and picking up items from the floor, or up high, can be really tricky when you have reduced hand function, and potentially reduced balance or core strength too. How many times have you dropped keys, or coins, or needed to grab an item from the fridge, or a high shelf? It can be a real challenge and we know many people look for a reacher tool to assist them. However, these can…

Oksana is the person behind Association Kondor – a website that aims to provide detailed information to assist disabled people in planning their travels. We spoke with her about her own disability, rehabilitation and how her new outlook has led her to create her website. In 2013, after sustaining a rare kind of spinal cord injury resulting in tetraplegia, Oksana found herself facing a new world of disability; “My family and I found ourselves alone against the medical world; alone with our questioning and alone in the process of adapting to the constraints of everyday life.” Passionate about dancing, she…

Anne-Marie describes her 8 year old daughter with well-deserved pride and here at Active Hands we love reading about our customers’ inventiveness and determination.

limb difference aid in action. Dysmelic oder Gliedmaßenunterschied (durch Amputation oder angeboren), Greifhilfe für Gliedmaßenunterschied

Squirrelling away in our office and factory, our team have been busy designing, testing and refining a brand new gripping aid and we are thrilled to now be able to present it to you. Alongside our gripping aids, we also run a bespoke design service for those with very individual needs and it was through this service that we were contacted by Karen. Karen has limb difference that affects her fingers and hands and was looking for a gripping aid that would enable her to vary her gym routine by giving her access to a wider range of equipment. As…

Yemina is an active, fun and smart twelve year old from Canada who loves to read or hang out with friends. She also has cerebral palsy which affects all of her movement and her level of independence. Her mum, Shoshana, explains that Yemina’s cerebral palsy makes any activity involving movement a challenge, but particularly those involving hand control. “She has a lot of extra movement through her arms and hands when she tries to use them.” This extra movement means that pushing buttons, grasping items or maintaining a grip of them can be really challenging for Yemina. For years, Yemina…

Jose in the gym with the General Purpose aid. Adaptive gym equipment. Suitable for reduced hand function: tetra, quad, cerebral palsy, SCI, spinal cord injury, limb difference, stroke and more.

In December 2002 José Maldonado, a dedicated husband and father of two, suffered a devastating intra-cerebral hemorrhage; a type of stroke caused by the sudden rupture of an artery within the brain. Unfortunately, like many stroke survivors, he experienced loss of function in both his lower and upper extremities, meaning he needed to use a wheelchair, struggled with aphasia, facial paralysis, and was overwhelmed by outside stimulation such as ambient noise. However, he was determined not to give up on his life, and after seeing what a profound effect his stroke had on his entire family he tried to find ways in which he…

Brandon doing a chin up using General Purpose aid. Adaptive gym equipment. Suitable for reduced hand function: tetra, quad, cerebral palsy, SCI, spinal cord injury, limb difference, stroke and more.

In 2012, Brandon Beack was an incredibly active and talented teenager. In addition to showing real talent in music and dancing, Brandon was a highly aspirational gymnast, competing for Western Province in the South African championships. His sights were firmly set on selection for the Junior Olympics and he was training for four hours, six days a week. However, a bad landing in training left Brandon with a complete Spinal Cord Injury at…