From a Carers point of view: Clothing

This is written from my own experience of living and caring for a loved one with MND/ALS.

One of the things I found the hardest to get my head round was how quickly things changed and how I needed to adapt to those changes. I did get better at it and was able to plan ahead ready for some of the obstacles we would face. But at the beginning I was totally unprepared for what was coming and it took me a little while to get up to speed as it were.

Craig lost the use of his hands and arms first. The lose of strength in his hands, meant he was unable to tie his shoe laces, pull his zip up on his trousers or do up buttons. I started to help with these things a long time before he was officially diagnosed. We knew at this point something was seriously wrong we just didn’t know what.

Getting dressed was becoming more difficult. To begin with Craig was able to cope by himself by making small adjustments, like pulling his shirts on over his head rather than buttoning them up. He liked to wear proper shirts not T shirts. After a while though he had little choice, as T shirts became much easier to use. He also opted for track suit bottoms as they were easier to get on and off and he could manage those himself.

When he couldn’t manage on his own, I would help him dress before I went to work.  T shirts and tracksuit bottoms or shorts became the norm.  We got some smart looking tracksuit bottoms so that he didn’t feel he was too scruffy. He liked to look nice when we went out and I liked him to feel comfortable. It was just a small thing but it mattered to him that he looked smart.

Dressing someone who has limited movement is hard and clothes that would have been their choice may not be practical any more. Dressing Craigs lower half was relatively straight forward, as he was happy in the smart tracksuit bottoms or shorts. When he was sitting down, either in his chair or in his wheelchair, he tended to have a blanket over his legs so what he was wearing on the lower half wasn’t as noticeable any way. At home he would wear T shirts or a jumper that were baggy and therefore easy to get on. Trying to get him into a proper shirt was doable but very difficult.

I asked my friend who’s a good sewer to adapt a couple of his shirts. I explained what I wanted. I asked her to put an opening down the back, which closed with Velcro, so he could still wear a proper shirt on special occasions. It worked brilliantly, it was easy to put on and didn’t involve me trying to manoeuvre his arms into a normal shirt, which was very difficult to do. The shirt just slipped on from the front and did up at the back. A good tip if anyone likes to wear proper shirts.