Universal Cuff in Action

Using a Universal Cuff For Everyday Activities 

When I first learned about a universal cuff, I thought that it was an amazing idea and adaptive tool. A universal cuff seems rather easy in theory, but I soon realized that nothing is as easy as it sounds. When I first tried to use it, I thought that it was not to bad. After about ten seconds of using it, it became a lot more difficult than I assumed it would be. The fork or pencil would slip out of the cuff, I would have to turn my whole arm certain ways to do particular actions, and I had to adapt every aspect of the activity besides just to grip aspect of it. I used a universal cuff to eat dinner, write my name, and type for one minute. I choose to do this experiment so I could understand on a first hand basis what it is like to have to use an adaptive tool to do simple tasks like eat. I am glad I did it, because it was definitely not as easy I expected it would be. As an occupational therapy student, I feel as though physically putting myself in someone else's position is the best way to understand what it is like to live with the struggles they live with. I found all of these task difficult even though I still used some flexion or extension of my wrist and fingers that most people who needed a cuff would not be able to do. It was hard for me to make myself not use my thumb or extend my wrist to a certain degree in order to compensate. This also helped me understand some adaptions that would need to be done to help someone efficiently use the cuff. I could not use certain tools to type and had to try a few times to figure out what to use. I had to tightly secure my fork into the cuff to eat before I could start. These are all things that I realized I would have to take into consideration as an OT before recommending a universal cuff. Through doing this experiment, I became more sympathetic to people who have to universal cuffs on a daily basis. I also have gained a large amount of respect to anyone who does use this on a daily basis, because I found it frustrating for more than five minutes. I think that this is something anyone should do before giving it to a person to use in their everyday lives. By using the adaptive tool for myself, I was able to realize how to make it the most beneficial for the individual person. 

Typing With a Universal Cuff and Honey Dipper 


https://youtu.be/hK5c3HzBO5A

The first time I tried to type with my universal cuff, I decided to do it with a honey dipper. I walked around the house looking for the easiest thing to use, which was a challenge in itself. I thought a honey dipper would be good because one end is large round to hit the keyboard and the other end is very large so it would not fall out of the cuff. As soon as I tried to use it, I realized that was a bad idea, because there was no way to stabilize it in the cuff. I decided to start over and look for something else. 

Typing With a Universal cuff and a Pen



https://youtu.be/He3YA0jUtHM
 
The second time I decided to use a pen. This worked much better than a honey dipper because I was able to clip the pen to the cuff, so it was very stable. I typed the following sentence: 
"I decided to see how many words I could type with a universal cuff. Like most things I have experienced with the universal cuff, it is a lot harder than it seems." 
This took me the entire video to type, which was one minute. Through doing this I realized that even though typing was do-able, it was still a frustrating process. I went from typing an entire paragraph in a minute to two sentences. 


Writing with a Universal Cuff


https://youtu.be/MX31OxeRQK0

Out of any activity I tried, I was the most successful with writing. Even though my hand writing was not as neat, it was still readable. It was not to difficult to do. Through this experience, I decided that a universal cuff would be most useful as an adaptive tool for writing. 

Eating Dinner with a Universal Cuff 


https://youtu.be/FTrYTZUemg4

There were a few things I learned through this experience. My family absolutely could not concentrate on anything else while I was eating with the cuff. They all stared at me the entire time. I explained to them before dinner what I was doing and why, yet all the attention was still on me as we ate. For someone who is actually impaired, I am sure this gets old very fast. Their family members probably watch them eat to see if they need any help or purely out of curiosity. I also thought eating would be a little bit more easy, but I often found myself have to turn my arm or head in an unnatural way in order to get the food in my mouth. I also gave up very fast on eating "like a lady", it became difficult to not drop things or get food on my face. I lost my manners early on into the experiment. Eating chicken was easy to do because I could stab it with the fork without worrying about it falling, but eating green beans was much more difficult. I repeatedly had to stab the green beans to get even a few on my fork. It made a loud obnoxious noise and added to the attention my family was already giving me. While doing this, I thought about someone with a SCI trying to go to a restaurant to eat. Being in a wheelchair would naturally draw attention to them but making so much noise while eating would really draw attention to them. I also could not easily get a fork in the cuff, I had to tie it into the cuff to stay in one spot. This was the most difficult thing I tried to do in this experiment. 



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