Make it easy to get around your home.  If you suffer from arthritis of the toes, feet, hips, or knees, it is difficult to move.  Walking from one room in your home to the next, may trigger pain.  Make it as easy as possible to move around.  Is your home an obstacle course with furniture in the way?  Enlist the help of a trusted friend, family member, or neighbor.  Rearrange your furniture to create a straight path.  The less turns and steps you have to make, the better.

Make sure all needed items are within easy reach.  Regardless of what joints hurt, it can be difficult to reach for and grip.  So, don’t.  Do you find it too difficult to reach to the high shelf in your kitchen cupboard?  If so, don’t use it.  Place all foods and dishes on lower shelves or utilize your countertop.  Do you find it too difficult to grasp dresser drawer handles?  Instead, use your closet to hang clothes.  With one simple tug, many fall right off the hanger.  Learning to prevent and manage the pain and discomfort associated with arthritis includes making your life at home easier.

Keep pain relievers handy.  All arthritis patients suffer from pain.  Depending on the type of arthritis, this pain may be constant or it may come and go.  Either way, pain relievers are a lifesaver.  They typically provide relief in as little as 15 minutes.  Some over-the-counter arthritis creams provide pain relief as soon as contact is made with the skin.  Since they do work, keep them on hand.  Keep some pills and creams in your home, car, and purse.  There are many ways to reduce the risk of arthritis pain, but there are no guarantees.  Anything can trigger pain, so always be prepared.

Rely on walking aids.  If you suffer from arthritis of the toes, feet, hips, or knees, walking can be difficult and painful.  With each step you take, pressure is applied to your already painful joints.  What can you do is lessen the pressure with walking aids.  These may include knee braces, crutches, or canes.  Remember, the less pressure you apply to your joints, the less pain you should feel.

Ask for help.  Arthritis patients experience times when they feel helpless.  This is often when they cannot open a jar of spaghetti sauce, walk to the mailbox without experiencing pain, or lift a heavy box.  It is very frustrating to be unable to handle daily tasks without pain.  Yes, you are encouraged to try, but not it if will bring on pain.  Although it can be hard, don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Ask your neighbor to deliver your mail to your home and save a heavy box until a family member can help you.

Keep a journal.  One of the many problems arthritis patients face is difficulty managing their pain.  Talking about the difficulties you face can help.  For most, the worst thing to do is to keep these emotions bottled up in side.  Are you mad that you are suffering from arthritis, get that anger out of you.  Deal with ease issues or complication as they arise, don’t keep things bottled up inside.  When they do come out, it will be huge.  It is best to talk to someone at home or join an arthritis support group.  If you opt not to, keep a journal instead.  Write down all feelings, including the good and the bad.

In short, there are many ways to treat and manage arthritis pain.  Over-the-counter products are a lifesaver for many arthritis patients, but they are not you only option.  The first step should be focusing on day-to-day tasks.  When these seem easier and less painful, the rest will simply just fall into place.

Government ministers say the welfare system is currently failing people and that the reforms will see benefits go to the right people who need the benefits. Steve Winyard, co-chairman of the Hardest Hit coalition, says the “one single achievement” of disability minister Maria Miller is that she has united the disability movement.

Organisers are calling on government ministers to:

• ensure changes to disability living allowance DLA  – which currentley helps many to live independently – do not make disabled people in need of the benefit worse off
• make sure employment and support allowance, the successor to incapacity benefit, has a fair assessment, does its job and supports disabled people
• stop cuts to services which are essential to disabled people’s quality of life, such as day care, transport and respite care services
• make sure that the welfare system supports people with the additional costs of living with a disability.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the government was “absolutely committed” to supporting disabled people and would spend “more than £40bn a year on disabled people and their services”.

Disability Alliance said “We are very concerned that the timetable for the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill may prevent adequate analysis of the potential impact of plans to be undertaken. We do not want to take formal legal action but feel we have no option if our concerns remain unaddressed.”

Disability Alliance is concerned that the following current plans will disproportionately disadvantage disabled people.

• Abolish low rate care DLA support which is received by 652,000 people.
• Reduce projected DLA expenditure by 20% (or £2.17 billion)
• Stop providing DLA mobility support for disabled eople living in residential care homs.

The matter is being managed by Unity Laaw on behalf of Disability Alliance.

It is estimated that just over a million people are getting care although some of these are needing to pay for care services themselves  as they exceed the income cap or have over £23,500 in savings. In 2005 h50% of councils provided support to thoose with moderate needs, sadly  that figure has dropped to below 20%.

The chairty is looking at wats of guaranteeing everyone a certain level of care and support if required. Let’s hope the UK government listen to charities like Age UK when the come to reviewing social care later this year and ensuring that everybody who needs care or support recieves what they need.

It was not until I met and talked to other wheelchair users did I come to accept it, not that I will ever feel totally natural but it is now managable and I thank God that it is today when there is disabled parking, shops are accessibble. It does make me think how did people cope with a disability 30 years ago when there was no such thing as The Disability Discrimination act.

Orginally I used a bulky steel ‘NHS style’ wheelchair with side arms on, I did not even know the arms detached and I used to launch myself out of the chair into the car and hold onto the handbrake or anything I could grab hold of in the car. Very undignified and very dangerous.

Now I use a lightweight wheelchair with detachable sides, so getting into a car is far more dignified using a side ways sliding action and a little help. However the first time I used my lightweight  chair I nearly flipped it over as the force I used was that from my old bulky chair so I needed to reduce the energy I put into wheeling myself around.

Birmingham City Council is planning to reduce care packages to about 4,000 people over the next three years. The authority, a Conservative-Liberal coalition, says it needs to make the cuts to help slash £118m from its budget. It explained that only those whose needs had been assessed as “critical” would qualify for council-funded care.

But the judges ruled that the council business plan was unlawful because it failed to comply with Section 49a of the Disability Discrimination Act. The four people, who cannot be named for legal reasons, include a 65-year-old woman with severe learning difficulties who receives 24-hour care in a home paid for by the council. They also include a 25-year-old man with a rare genetic disorder and severe learning disabilities who receives overnight respite care, also funded by the council.

The case was also brought on behalf of a 30-year-old deaf, autistic man with severe learning disabilities who is prone to self-harm. His specialist day care would also have gone under the plans. The fourth person is a 36-year-old woman with severe learning difficulties whose day care centre will close and who is also set to lose respite care.

The survey reveals that 19 local councils have raised the eligibility bar for free adult social care. Thhis means only 22 councils in England out of the 148 which responded will now fund those assessed as having moderate needs, down from 36 in 2010. This criteria includes people who are so ill or disabled that they have trouble taking a bath or preparing a meal for themselves.

Andrew Dilnott, chairman of the commission, said there was no doubt that social care was being squeezed and there was “a growing amount of unmet need”.

He said the current system seemed to “invite variability” and “there was merit in trying to find an assessment system… that seems to give people more of a sense that there was fairness and equality across the UK”.

But he said regardless of the cuts, the system needed to be reformed.

Theblue badge allows people with disabilities to park in disabled parkiong spaces, for free or on yellow lines. However the system has increasingly been open to abuse.

Critics say some local authorities do not punish those who obtain them fraudulently or allow them to be misused and give them out too easily. One charity has called for consistency across local councils in how they are issued.

Blue badges are issued to people who recieve the mobility supplement or higher rate disability living allowance, registered blind, or receive a war pensioner’sand to other people with mobility problems who undergo an assessment from their doctor. The number of blue badges has soared in recent years with an estimated 2.5 million now in circulation nationally.

Helen Dolphin, Policy co-ordinater for the disabled motorists charity Mobilise says “there is a need for much greater consistency with councils taking more care over who gets them”. Ms Dolphin also wants people to be educated about the proper use: “A lot of family members think they can use it” — even without the disabled person being in the car! “There are also cases of carers thinking they can use it to park when they go shopping.

Paul Slowey of Blue Badge Fraud Investigation Ltd, which investigates blue badge abuse on behalf of councils, says that in some city areas up to 50% of badges are being wrongly used. He says the powers are there for local authorities to mount prosecutions for fraud when they detect misuse, but “historically enforcement has been dreadful”.

Mr Slowey points to the rail network where ticket fraud fell after companies introduced strict measures aimed at fare dodgers. “If the use of blue badges is enforced properly then the scheme will function as it should,” he said.

The DWP said – Disability Living Allowance needs to better reflect disabled peoples’ needs and extra costs they might incur in society today. The proposals set out in the consultation are centred on creating a clearer, more targeted benefit, with an objective assessment, designed to enable disabled people to participate more fully in society. To mark this important change, Disability Living Allowance will now be known as Personal Independence Payment, and will continue to be paid to people in and out of work.

The reason behind the reform of this benefit is because it needs to follow a social rather than medical model, which is based on a person’s needs and the barriers they face rather than their individual disability. Currently almost 3 million people receive this benefit at a forecast cost of £12 billion per year.

The minister for disability Maria Miller said “We want the views of disabled people to be fully reflected in any change we make to DLA and we remain fully committed to the principles of DLA as a non-means tested cash benefit to assist with the extra costs incurred by disabled people”

At the moment the DWP is in consultation with charities and organizations for disabled people and are looking for input from people whom this will effect. The published consultation can be found at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2010/dla-reform.shtml

As a wheelchair user I have needed to go out in the snow and brave the elements however the first rule of thumb is not to go our unless you really need to. I had a meeting at a local hotel and before I set off I rang them up to check that the ramp outside the hotel had been gritted before I left.

Transferring from a wheelchair into a car was tricky as the wheelchair was prone to moving in the snow so I needed to make sure that I had a firm grip just incase the wheelchair did slip or move. I also ensured the brakes were on firmly.

The back two main wheels of a wheelchair are fine in the snow it is the two front small wheels that can cause problems and it it is a matter of moving backwards and going in a straight a line as possibble that helped me to combat the snow.