Why must disability aids make us look disabled?

When an Occupational Therapist recently came to assess my needs, she suggested a shower seat to stop me falling and a perching stool to make life easier in the kitchen and ordered them from Medequip.

The perching stool had a white plastic seat with white legs, but the extensions to them were chrome with grey rubber feet! Uggh! This stood out like a sore thumb in my kitchen which is (I think) tastefully decorated in coffee, cream and terracotta. It had such a bad effect on me I actually cried.

I rang Medequip to describe the shower stool on order. My heart sank. It had legs, was far too cumbersome and difficult to clean. What I really wanted was the stylish and unobtrusive flap down type I had seen on display somewhere.

So I turned down both the perching stool and shower seat on the grounds that they lack design and don't fit in with my home.

I have taken a lot of trouble to furnish and decorate my home, colour coordinating everything. For example, the shower is fully tiled in pale grey and pinks with glass sliding doors. We looked at grab rails and decided they too looked clumsy and shouted 'Disabled' or'Elderly!' So we fitted towel rails in the appropriate places that can be used as both towel rail or grab rails and very nice they look too.

Why do we have no choice when it comes to assistive equipment? Why do they think one size fits all? And why shouldn't disabled people have aids with some design flare? I'm sure the flap down seat without legs costs a lot less, so Social Services could save money. All they need to do is ask Medequip to stock both!

The perching stool, whilst handy, was nasty to look at. Surely they could offer a choice, such as all white, all cream etc, instead of the naff two-tone object they gave me.

The instant impression upon walking into my kitchen was not "what a pleasant room" but "somebody with a disability lives here."

The same applies to scooters too. Let's have trendy colours. And how much shopping can you get in most of those silly baskets!!

My point in writing is that I believe we should lobby the designers and get them to give us fashionable equipment that blends into our homes and gives us the choices that others without disabilities have. Their sales would increase because some of us change furniture as fashion changes.

It may seem ungrateful to have rejected the perching stool and shower seat. But I feel that if my home looks disabled, I will become disabled too! The psychological effect of this ugly and obtrusive furniture should not be overlooked.

I have found a flap-down seat without legs in a local builders' merchabts at a cost of £45 and until I can sort out how to get this fitted, I will take the risk of falling in the shower!

This article was taken from the Pathways magazine - November/December 2003 edition.