Sometimes, simple and relatively inexpensive hospital staples can make a big difference at home—like the hospital tray table.
“We first thought of this at a hospital, where they use it so you can have a tray to put your food on, they can slide it so the legs go under your bed and the tray is over your body,” Ben in Pennsylvania tells me. During one of his wife’s many hospital stays, they got the idea to get one for home. “It hadn’t occurred to be before that they were available. It just seemed really useful while we were there and it’s been just as useful at home.”
They use it constantly. Since its height adjustable, “we can have it next to the recliner and it’s useful as an end table to her. It also works next to the wheelchair or even over the wheelchair if my wife tilts back in her wheelchair—she has a Tilt-in-Space chair where the entire seat rotates, which puts it up much higher than when it’s rotated further back. You can lift the table up so it’s next to her at the right height.”
As a bonus, it also wasn’t very expensive. “It’s just so handy and it’s not terribly expensive; I got it at Amazon for like, maybe $60.”