- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet, Brad.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- So Brad, we're gonna talk about choosing
and fitting canes.
- Right.
- Today.
- You wanna get a cane?
You wanna get one that you like?
One that works best for you?
And then how to fit it for you,
so you know it's the right height.
- Okay. Sounds good.
- Okay.
- Let's start off.
- Let's start off with your basic cane.
This is your basic cane from years ago.
It's called the hook cane.
This one is made out of aluminum,
but, you know, back then they were always wood.
- Right.
- You know, they were always made out of wood.
- And we did do a video on how to cut a cane.
- Right? You remember that?
Yep. How to, yep.
You're gonna use a saw
and you may have to have someone help with that.
But as far as back to choosing a cane,
let's talk about the handle first, Bob.
You got the hook handle.
You've got the handle that looks like this and over,
and then you got the pistol grip.
There is nothing except personal choice with all these.
- Which one do you like the best?
I'm just curious.
- I don't know, Bob.
I think I like this the best.
- See, I like the pistol grip.
I love that.
- Yeah. Yep.
Some people really like that.
- A lot of people.
If I were to do a survey,
I would say most people like this one.
- That very well could be.
- Yeah.
- One thing about the handles,
you might wanna get a handle that's cushy and soft.
- Right
- If you use a cane all the time, you're going to.
It's gonna help your hand
and prevent some symptoms of pain.
- We've actually had to put kind of a soft lambs wool
on there for some people,
because it was just too hard on their hands.
- The next thing is the opposite end of the cane,
which is the point or the tip.
There's a single tip cane, which is very common.
You see those all the time.
And then there's the quad cane
that has the four points.
- And now, you've heard of that little hurry cane, too.
It has just a, you know,
it's not really a single tip,
but it has little four outputs on it.
- Right, I've seen that it only had three.
It looks like a little triangle.
- Right.
- And that's kind of a cross
between the quad cane and the single point.
And the biggest thing I think on those Bob,
I don't know what your opinion is,
but the quad cane, you can set it there.
- Right.
- The single point cane,
they're always tipping over and falling down.
- Yeah.
And even on that hurry cane,
which is supposed to stand like this,
it will on a tile floor,
but on a carpeted floor, it falls over.
- Exactly.
- So the other,
I'm just gonna make a quick point, too, Brad.
If you're getting a cane from somebody else,
you wanna make sure that tip is good.
- Yes.
- And usually what I do is,
I just go like this,
and I go like this to make sure it's sticking
- Right.
- If it doesn't, if it's slides,
you need to get a new tip on there.
- Yeah.
You just pull 'em off, go to the hardware store.
You should be able to find them that fits on there nicely
and work well.
Okay.
Back to the quad cane.
The other thing, nice thing about the quad cane,
is they're a little more stable.
So if you have someone that's weak, a little shaky,
sometimes they like these better.
- The other thing is you have to adjust them, right?
Do you, are you, that's for later?
- The height?
- Yeah.
- Oh the height, but the turning too.
- Right. If you look at this.
Are you down on the floor, Matt?
Quad cane, the shaft, is always offset,
and you see what I mean?
There's the four points here
and the shaft is not in the center
of those four points.
It's more to one side,
and it should be like this,
so the feet are farther away.
If you're like this when you walk,
you have more of a chance
of bumping your toe into that and falling.
That's an issue. We don't want fall, right?
- Right.
On the negative side of these,
is that if you like to walk fairly fast,
when you're walking along,
you got me, Matt?
Is your,
you know what I mean?
- Yeah.
- It just doesn't flow.
It's good for someone
who's gonna do very slow, deliberate steps,
cuz you can place it and it sticks.
- Yeah.
- But if you're trying to walk fast,
it just doesn't work.
- Right.
- It just doesn't work at all.
- Why don't you stand up, Bob?
Let's talk about how to fit the cane for the highest.
- Okay.
- I always say to my patient,
stand up nice and tall with normal posture.
Let your hand hang down.
And I put the cane right there
and I try to line the handle up
with the crease of the wrist.
And here we're off about three inches.
So, you know, these aluminum canes are nice,
and this is a good point right here.
I'm gonna go as high as I can with this cane.
It just barely makes it for Bob.
- Right. Exactly.
- All right.
Now we take that cane from Bob
and we put it on me,
and that'd have to lower it about four inches.
So that's the rule of thumb.
- That's the rule of thumb,
but you still go a little bit by comfort.
Once you get it up here,
you may have to adjust it an inch above or inch below,
depending on how,
I'll have a person walk with it.
Like this actually is perfect for me.
- Sure.
- In fact, depending on how much you're gonna lean on it,
I might even go a little bit lower.
- Sure.
- So
- Yeah, you get it within close.
It's a personal preference when you get within that.
- So that's the same rule of thumb
you're gonna use with all the canes
and the quad cane.
- Right.
- And all of the,
by the way, we have a little bonus here.
This is called a Hemi Walker.
It's not a cane,
but this one is very stable.
This is for someone who really needs
to be able to lean on something.
But it would be the same thing for that.
You would raise it up to the point where it hits the wrist.
- Right.
- But this is one you put down,
and you can really lean on this thing.
- Right?
- I mean, this will be a lot of support.
- I've used this primarily with people with a stroke.
Who one arm and one leg is involved is fairly weak,
but they can stand,
and they really lean to the one side,
and we want to keep 'em up.
- And kind of a slow deliberate walker,
and they really need to have the support.
Anything else we need to talk about on these guys?
- I think that covers the basics
of how to go to the store,
pick one out,
and then adjust it for the proper height.
And if you want any more information, you know,
you could subscribe to us,
and we'd really appreciate it.
- Yeah.
Remember the old days,
when they give the somebody the hook?
Take 'em out of the...
- Yeah, I remember those, Bob.
I don't know. It's probably old vaudeville days.
All right. Thanks a lot.