"JCAlan" (jcalan)
09/03/2016 at 21:35 • Filed to: None
9
25|
"JCAlan" (jcalan)
09/03/2016 at 21:35 • Filed to: None | 9
| 25 |
photo credit: greenbaum-pr.com
The other day I saw an elderly lady hobbling her way into a store with her walker, and of course I immediately noticed the bright neon green tennis balls that she had affixed to the non-rolling ends of her walker. It occurred to me that I used to see this all the time. In fact, I remember the very first time that I saw it when I was a child visiting my great-grandparents in a nursing home. Even then I immediately knew their purpose- to help the walker glide along over various surfaces and to prevent marring of floors. But why, 30 years later, are tennis balls still the preferred solution? Can’t someone come up with something better?
Actually, I suppose they have. Which is why I hadn’t seen this patched together tennis ball transportation solution in awhile (see? this IS transportation-related, because I just used the word right there!). The better design over a traditional walker altogether is the “rollerator,” which provides better mobility, braking, a seat to rest on, and a hilarious name (although I personally would have gone with “The Roll-inator” myself because it sounds even more diabolical). Slowly the rollerator has taken the place of the walker, except probably in nursing homes and other places where pinching pennies is more important than preventing deadly falls.
But before this break-through in walker design, why did a device designed for lobbing over a net with a racket become the standard accessory for a rehabilitation aid? Well I have attempted to trace the origin of this hack, and discovered that it !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and hospital rehab wings. Imagine for a moment that you work in such an environment. You probably work 10 or 12 hour shifts, and since you aren’t the doctor or the RN, you’re likely making just over the minimum wage allowed by law. If they could find a way to pay you less and keep you from quitting, they would, and they’re probably already working on it. Now imagine that your day is filled with the sound of 50 or so partially-mobile old folks dragging and rattling their cheap-o aluminum walkers across the linoleum. All day long they creek and drag. They rattle and squeak, while down the halls they creep. Poe could use 30 pages to describe the horrors of this sound!
So I imagine that one day someone (who was no doubt recovering from a tequila hangover) had just fricken had enough of that noise, and lost it. She went to the sports store on her lunch break, and came back with a cart-load of tennis balls and just went berserk coving the ends of all the walkers in her department. Everyone thought that she lost her mind, but then they noticed something...silence. The reign of walker screeching terror had ended, and soon the practice of destroying tennis balls for sanity’s sake would spread across the globe, much to the delight of companies like Spaulding and Wilson, who no doubt enjoyed an unexpected and baffling bump in sales.
As the users of these walkers would transition back home, the tennis ball concept would come home with them. They really do work fairly well at gliding over surfaces and preventing marring of floors, even though they wear out very quickly. But then things just went nuts. Tennis balls became synonymous with walkers. Everyone had them. Amazingly, instead of companies working to solve the flaws of walker design with a less-ridiculous approach, the industry took the tennis ball phenomenon to the extreme.
You can now buy tennis balls that are pre-slit for walker installation. More than that, they have become a fashion accessory that you can get in various colors and patterns to match your grandmother’s sassy style. She can get colorful tennis balls that compliment the color of the cat that is embroidered on her sweater. She can even show off her patriotism by dragging red-white-and-blue balls across the Walmart parking lot.
But can you get them that don’t look like tennis balls? Don’t be ridiculous! Why would you even ask that! Only tennis balls belong on the bottoms of walkers. Right? RIGHT? If they don’t have that faux-stitching pattern on them grandma would be embarrassed to go out into public. What would the other grandmas think of her?
But !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the tennis balls are not the optimal solution for all people. She makes the case that the tiny contact patch wears out incredibly fast. She also states that children point at her tennis balls, and dogs chase her. And you know what? Those children and dogs are right. Those tennis balls do not belong there.
But just to show how conditioned we’ve become to accepting that they do belong there, take a look at this product:
It addresses the problem of the contact patch wearing out by making a removable insert that can be switched out when it wears. It also ditches the sloppy cutting of the ball, and has a nice cap in it that fits perfectly over the end of the walker. Wait! Why the hell do we need the part between the walker leg cap and the insert to exist at all, let alone look like a fricken tennis ball? Why is this happening? Just take the felt pad and attach it directly to the walker. No tennis ball necessary!
Next, take a look at these casters for walkers:
On no they d’in’t!! They made stupid casters out of tennis balls. Wheels already exist, people. We do not need to re-invent them using gosh-darn tennis balls just because they are being applied to walkers.
Now, take a look at these perfectly reasonable replacement walker caps:
Notice anything about them? Something perhaps tennis ball-esque in their appearance? Why?!
Ok, one more. Take a look at this next device:
They are just grips that hold a tennis ball nicely, right? This solves the problem of having to cut the tennis ball, and the contact patch wearing out, as you can move the ball around, right? WRONG!
What cold be a simple design that could just hold a tennis ball, instead holds a fake tennis ball, but it still is made to look like a tennis ball because.......reasons, I guess? I give up trying to understand this. The only thing I know is if you can, buy a rollerator. If you can’t, and get stuck with an old walker, just buy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . They work just fine and aren’t inexplicably pretending to be tennis balls for unknown reasons.
Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 21:44 |
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Plastic slides will scratch floors.
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JCAlan
> Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
09/03/2016 at 21:46 |
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I don’t know, are floors really that fragile?
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Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 21:49 |
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They’ll collect dirt and it’ll get stuck in the bottom
1111111111111111111111
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 21:57 |
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Teflon skis with recessed tungsten carbide bits...that would be the ultimate.
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JCAlan
> 1111111111111111111111
09/03/2016 at 21:59 |
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Make it so!
Urambo Tauro
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:04 |
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Thank you for writing this up! I’m just as baffled as you are that these tennis ball retrofits are still a thing.
I wonder if the standard tennis ball color has become so widely accepted on walkers because it looks like a safety feature...
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JCAlan
> Urambo Tauro
09/03/2016 at 22:11 |
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Safe until a dog attacks them!
jariten1781
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:11 |
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I volunteered at a mental hospital’s kitchen way back in HS. The tennis ball mod was banned there due to too many folks face planting since they had no traction. It was a big deal when The rule was implemented, impotent protests, nasty notes in the suggestion box and people who had a seemingly endless supply and would replace them every time theirs were taken.
The supervising RN told me, when I asked, that people who needed walkers put themselves in danger with the tennis balls and folks who trundle around fine with the tennis balls didn’t really need walkers yet but we’re hastening their eventual need due to not exercising certain muscles and joints as much as they could.
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Urambo Tauro
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:12 |
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Let’s just use baby chickens instead!
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JCAlan
> jariten1781
09/03/2016 at 22:14 |
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Thanks for your insight! “The Rule” lol.
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JCAlan
> Urambo Tauro
09/03/2016 at 22:16 |
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I gaurantee you can buy a chick cheaper than a tennis ball.
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1111111111111111111111
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:28 |
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Some medical company would sue me after I file a patent. And then I’d loose the company. It would suck.
Xyl0c41n3
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:32 |
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This is the best thing I've read on Oppo since Oran J. Sands wrote about breaking the roundabout record. Heh.
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JCAlan
> 1111111111111111111111
09/03/2016 at 22:41 |
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Strikingly accurate.
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JCAlan
> Xyl0c41n3
09/03/2016 at 22:42 |
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Well thanks!
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JCAlan
> Xyl0c41n3
09/03/2016 at 22:47 |
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http://oppositelock.kinja.com/urine-a-lot-of…
That's good stuff!
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1111111111111111111111
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 22:48 |
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Yup. I just was prescribed a knee brace. 10$ of neoprene and 5$ of steel for 300$. And I’m being generous on the build costs.
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Xyl0c41n3
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 23:18 |
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Omg!!! I hadn't read that follow up post! That is magnificent. He is legit my all-time favorite Oppo. He needs to write more things.
Your boy, BJR
> JCAlan
09/03/2016 at 23:19 |
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JCAlan
> Your boy, BJR
09/03/2016 at 23:24 |
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Exactly.
George McNally
> JCAlan
09/04/2016 at 00:28 |
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When I had a knee replacement a few years ago, I had to buy a walker. It had wheels on the front and those stupid rubber tips on the back....I replaced the rubber tips with 2 more wheels. Not sure how safe that was, but it rolled a lot easier when I would take walks.
NostalgicCarLife
> JCAlan
09/04/2016 at 07:45 |
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I would hazard a guess that the tennis ball thing was probably invented at home, rather than in
a home
. Just because it’s not that easy to cut into a tennis ball, you need tools of some sort. Maybe somebody wanted to help grandpa while he was visiting, or maybe grandpa went into the garage, spotted some tennis balls, and did it himself.
JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
> JCAlan
09/04/2016 at 09:29 |
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Had that happen!
Ok. Let me explain.
A couple years back, I dressed as an old lady for Halloween. I found a rusty old 4 prong Cain, one of the rubber bases was gone. So I put a tennis ball on it
I looked bery authentic. Costume was a hit.
I get to one of the last houses for the night. Guy had a big goofy German Shepard. He ran out and started sniffing my cane. The old guy was confused saying his dog never did that. When I lifted the cane to show him why, the dog stole it! I was laughing too hard to care and the guy gave me lots of extra candy to compensate me
It was hilarious!
shop-teacher
> JCAlan
09/04/2016 at 11:12 |
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Alrighty then! Thanks for ... Knowledge ... I guess :)
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JCAlan
> JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
09/04/2016 at 12:03 |
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Dog attacks confirmed! Awesome