Crutches accessories - tips and grips for your walking sticks!

The walking stick has served us well in walking, climbing and steadying ourselves. When this walking stick was employed as weight-bearing device to facilitate ambulating when disabled, it was called a crutch. Crutches along with crutches accessories are used after a leg or foot injury, stroke, surgery, or in any condition where the person is not able to safely bear weight on the leg. Basic crutches accessories are crutch tips and grips.

Tips cover the end of a crutch to make it stable. The history of these crutches accessories is as interesting as crutch history itself. Tips of the early crutches were non-existent or made of metal because the terrain at the time was mostly rugged. Invention of the vulcanization process by Charles Goodyear in 1844 helped the creation of a metal device with a rubber end affixed permanently to the wooden crutch.

However, it wasn’t until the turn of the century when the rubber crutch tips became common. In addition, World War I provided the need for more advances in crutches accessories technology. In 1919, George Hippwood patented a sophisticated crutch tip with an air bladder inside.

His patent also shows one of the first height adjustable crutch grips. These later evolved into the adjustable underarm crutch issued by hospitals today for the short-term user market. Grips are that part of the crutch which you place under your arm. A contoured grip is usually easier to hold for extended periods than a rounded one. The earlier models of these crutches accessories were as crude as the tips but later evolved in sophisticated, ergonomic styles. Today there are several crutches accessories available to the disabled!

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