One major way that people with Parkinson’s disease can save much time and energy every day is to learn easy techniques to help them get dressed and undressed faster.
Plan Your Routine With Care
To make dressing and undressing go faster and easier, you need to plan ahead and allow yourself more time. You should be making sure that your drugs that you are taking are properly dosed and are working well. Getting dressed before your drugs have kicked in can be incredibly frustrating and should be avoided. This means that your morning dressing routine might go as follows:
- Take medications
- Take bath
- Eat breakfast
- Dress for the first part of your day
Easy Clothes Tips
There are some types of clothes that are going to be easier for you to put on if you have someone help you. These include panty hose, stockings, slacks, sweat suits and track pants. In those cases, some patients find it is easier to just lie on a bed and have your feet in the air and have the caregiver help them. There also are many helpful Parkinson’s dressing aids that can help in these processes, such as the Norco Molded Sock Aid With Two Handles, and the Dressing Stick and Shoehorn. This product is really helpful for taking off both clothes and shoes.
Shirttails also can be hard for some patients to tuck in. However, some patients find that with the use of a ruler or a clothes hanger, they are able to more easily tuck in their shirttail. This should be done before you tighten your pants or skirt.
Zipper tabs can also be hard sometimes for the Parkinson’s patient to grasp. This is where Clear Zipper Pulls can really help. This product does not require you to be able to grip to pull the zipper. It features a three inch long loop of monofilament that clips to the zipper tab. All you need to do is to put your thumb or fingers into the loop and pull up or down.
Clear Zipper Pulls make zipping and unzipping simple.
Choosing looser fitting clothes to wear is really going to make your dressing routine go easier too. If you can find clothes with snaps at the waist, cuffs or shirtfront, these are going to be a lot easier to deal with than buttons. Of course, Velcro is extremely helpful and you should try to wear clothes with it when you can.
For mean who still wear ties, tying a tie is usually beyond the ability of most people with Parkinson’s. That is where you should consider simply purchasing clip on neck ties.
By keeping these tips and dressing aids in mind, you can make your daily routine of dressing and undressing with Parkinson’s much easier, and your quality of life will greatly increase.