Adaptive Clothing

Whast Is Adaptive CLothing ?

Most of us don’t think a whole lot about getting dressed. Sure, we might care about our style, but the actual process of putting on clothes pants one leg at a time, button through the button hole is as automatic as breathing.

But imagine you only have one arm. How do you button your shirt now? What if you receive nutrition through a feeding tube implanted in your stomach? Wearing that cute dress means you can’t eat in public, lest you ash everyone in the room. Think about what the tight waistband of your jeans might feel like if you were autistic and had magnied sensitivity to touch.

For years, people with disabilities and special needs have had to improvise. Those with cerebral palsy that aected their hand coordination might replace sleeve buttons with Velcro. Parents of autistic kids would cut the scratchy tags out of their children’s t-shirts. But now, a slew of companies both new and established are creating “adaptive clothing” to meet these needs.