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Over the last several years I've been dealing with various stages of disability thanks to ALS. My goal is to share solutions and review various products/tools/devices that I have found particularly helpful.

Thursday 15 November 2012

metal wallet


I've been meaning to write about this wallet for some time, but somehow it keeps getting put on the back burner.

Anyway before I discovered the clinch wallet, this accordion style metal while it was suggested to me to help me access my credit cards. In short, my traditional folding leather wallet credit cards were sticking and becoming very difficult to get out. This as seen on TV metal wallet put open a fan and allow the cards to sit rather loosely.

In theory this was a good idea, but in practice it didn't really work out so well. As I was losing considerable dexterity and pinch strength between my index finger and thumb, the wallet which is closed by a little plastic clasp became very difficult open and surprisingly, due to the loss of dexterity it wasn't it easy to access all of my cards as we hoped it would. In particular the ones on the outside near the metal covers. Those were very difficult to get out.

Not mentioned, the idea of having the cards loose makes it easier to pull them out once you have a hold of him but if you happen to drop the wallet (which happened to me in the checkout line) the wallet kind of explodes when it hits the ground and now you got 10 or 15 cards scattered all over the place. Needless to say with dexterity problems this is a real pain in the butt…

By itself I found the aluminum wallet was insufficient to replace my regular wallet completely. Consequently I found myself carrying another item to organize my stuff. A regular wallet would carry my cash and ID, and this aluminum wallet would carry pretty much exclusively just my cards. Although you could put your ID in, it's really inconvenient if you need it… You have to take it out of the wallet to show it.

It's been my experience so far that while dealing with ALS, simplification and minimization is best. Less items I need to manage and carry around the easier my life is. This aluminum wallet ended up adding to the list of things I needed to carry around…


On the plus side, the wallet is a very inexpensive to try and very easy to find. I found mine at Canadian tire for about $10. If you care reasonable amount of grip strength and dexterity left, it might be a viable solution. Personally however I didn't really like and can't recommend especially when there are alternatives such as the clinch wallet. Even so, I used to this matter wallet for probably almost 6 months and for most of the time it worked out okay. Not good, just okay…

Pro:
  • inexpensive to try, only $10 Canadian.
  • If you still have a reasonable amount of dexterity and pinch strength this might actually
Con:
  • if you have weakness between your thumb and index finger, it is very difficult to open the latch
  • once you've popped it open, don't drop it. You'll have cards everywhere
  • by itself is insufficient to replace a regular wallet. So I found I ended up carrying another item to organize my stuff.
Conclusion, can't recommend it…

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