Here at Dycem Non-Slip, we always look forward to exhibiting at the AOTA Conference and Expo as it’s a great chance to meet with Occupational Therapists who are enthusiastic about Dycem and how it helps them in their work.

At this year’s event in Nashville, we gathered together a list of uses for Dycem Non-Slip in an occupational therapy setting. Here are some of the best uses for Dycem we heard from the AOTA 2015 attendees;

Dycem in a Clinical Setting

1. “I’m a hand therapist; I actually use it for scar tissue, to soften up the scars after tendons surgery.”
2. “I use Dycem all the time on the grab bar, so that the people who don’t have the strength to hang on can use it to hang on to the grab bar to do transfers.”
3. “I use Dycem all the time for my weight baring clients, to make sure that they don’t slip or fall and they NEVER do, it’s great. I also use it for standing.”
4. “I use Dycem for when a patient does sit to stand from the wheelchair up to standing with the rolling walker and it supports their feet. Sometimes their feet slip because the person has suffered a stroke and I have to place their foot to stop it from slipping”.
5. “I’ve used Dycem, just a roll of Dycem, in rehab a lot where you can cut pieces to size. It helps with keeping seating position in place or just for dynamic stuff like armchair positioning especially for neural rehab.”
6. “To help a paediatric patient with fine motor co-ordination work.”
7. “Dycem is one of the most versatile tools we have in therapy, we can use it to make grips, and we can use it in our day to day practice to help hold limbs and position feet where they’re supposed to be. It’s marvellous for seating as well as adapting other equipment.”
8. “I use it to hold my interactive metronome down.”
9. “I use the self-adhesive Dycem to line finger splints, so they don’t slip. Sometimes finger splints will migrate forward and when they need to wash the splint, they can also wash the Dycem.”
10. “I use Dycem for rehabilitation, especially with my stroke patients with feeding. It builds grip, offers table support and it’s good for wheelchair adjustments, such as breaks. We’re not able to modify people’s chairs so we have to use other means to adapt.”
11. “We use Dycem to keep the plates from sliding for clients with fine motor difficulties and for horse therapy (hippotherapy) we can use it on the horses to keep the clients body from sliding on saddles and keep them centred.”
12. “I use Dycem on horse reigns for my clients when performing hippotherapy.

Dycem in the Home

1. “I use Dycem for my exercise bike, to hold it in place.”
2. “I actually I just moved into a new place and the toilet was wobbly, so I couldn’t put anything on to it. I took all of my things, my toiletries and I put them on a tray and I put a little sample size of Dycem under the tray and now it doesn’t slip off anymore.”
3. “To hold a cutting board in place in the kitchen.”
4. “I use it to hold the tower in place when I play Jenga.”
5. “I use it to keep a sewing machine from sliding.”
6. “We use it to keep someone’s remote from sliding off the table.”

Dycem On-the-Go

1. “I use Dycem in wheelchairs to stop patients sliding out of their seats.”
2. “I actually use it play racket ball and tennis with, I use regular grips that I buy at the store that don’t last as long or grip as well. I wrap it around like a regular grip tape, you just make a spiral out of it and it stays on forever and it actually has ‘tackier’ properties and I don’t have to wear a racket glove with it, so it’s great.”
3. “I use Dycem with my Grandmother to provide a non-slip surface as she gets up and walks out of the restaurant.”
4. “I give the small circle piece out for people to take out with them to restaurants to put under a plate when they eat.”

Dycem for Gaining Independence

1. “I work in a facility where we use Dycem all the time for positioning and self-feeding and helping people to improve their independence.”
2. “I use Dycem Bottle Openers for my arthritic hands, to open my medicine.”
3. “We use Dycem for colour contrast as well as stabilisation with one-handed techniques like brushing teeth.”
4. “I use Dycem Jar Openers with amputee patients or patients with arthritis. It helps them to open doors.”
5. “I would use Dycem for people with low strength who want wash a pot or pan.”
6. “You can use Dycem Mats to put paper on, so people who only have one hand can use it to write.”
7. “I use Dycem to help with medication management, to stabilise the pill organiser.”
8. “We use Dycem for everything. I use it primarily with spinal cord patients; it keeps their cell phones from sliding when they’re trying to type.”
9. “My best use for Dycem is when I cut a piece into two- inch squares and I put it under the chair for a lady who when she stood up, the chair slid backwards. This was causing safety problem for her, but thanks to Dycem, the patient reduced her fall risk significantly.”

Dycem in Education/Learning

1. “I have a student who likes to slide out of his chair, so I put the Dycem in his chair so he cannot slide and it works wonderfully.”
2. “I use it for feeding to make sure bowls and plates don’t slip.
3. “To stabilise papers on desk.”
4. “I’m a student so I use Dycem in school. In eating competency class we had to use the Dycem to show how a patient can keep their plate on the table.”
5. “I use the self-stick Dycem to put on the back of clipboards for students. So that they can move the clipboard wherever they’re going and it doesn’t slip.”

We would like to thank everyone we met at AOTA this year for their best uses for Dycem Non-Slip. And if you have any others to add to the list, please share with us your ideas below.