Arthritis can change your life in little ways that add up to major frustrations.

Dedicated cooks who used to labor lovingly over mushroom risotto and homemade pasta may abandon their stovetop creations when arthritis pain makes something as simple as chopping vegetables painful. Even canned soup lovers can be forced to eat crackers and milk when opening the lid is a battle due to joint pain.

That’s why we were so happy to find Arthritis: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier. Every page of this welcome resource is packed full of smart, simple adaptations to make daily tasks easier for people with arthritis. We particularly liked recommendations for adapting the room where most of spend the majority of our time: the kitchen.

Check out these inexpensive solutions to everyday problems, then order the book for hundreds more solutions to your arthritis needs.

1.    With PurrfectOpener, bottles, caps and cans open easily. If your hands aren’t working like they used to, the multiple openings of the PurrfectOpener will fit over bottle and pill caps and give extra leverage for opening. It also has a handy tail for opening milk bottles, pop tops and pull tabs; ears to pierce safety seals; and even openings for splitting pills. Use the magnetic back to keep the opener affixed to your refrigerator or stove and within easy reach. Find this or a similar product at drug stores or order online.

2.    Use a slow cooker to prepare meals early in the day, when your energy is usually at its best. Plus, there’s no standing at the stove, hot pots to handle, or major clean-up to do at the end of the day.

3.    Create a lower work surface to use while seated by setting a cutting board or cookie sheet over an open drawer at the height that works for you.

4.    Use a pastry blender to mix foods or stir and separate ground meat. Its large, thick handle makes it easier to use than a fork or mixing spoon.

5.    Replace hard-to-grip utensils with large, cushioned-handle versions. To get an easier grip on cooking, replace old potato peelers, spatulas, whisks, and others with modern gadgets that have large, cushioned handle grips. OXO International kitchen products, sold in the kitchen, garden, and housewares sections of department stores, include a number of specialty and hard-to-find cooking utensils(cookie scoop, spice grinders) and other easy-grip products and tools for home and garden.

6.    Cook in an electric frying pan or wok, so that you can sit at the kitchen table while you cook. Less cleanup, too.

7.    Turntables make a variety of items easier to reach. Use one inside your refrigerator, and others in kitchen and bathroom cabinets to bring desired items within reach. Put one on the kitchen counter or in the middle of the dining room table to make it easier to reach napkins, condiments, and other items.

8.    The Prep Taxi safely carries food from cutting board to pan or bowl. The Prep Taxi is a unique scoop that allows you to slice, dice, and chop food in preparation for cooking and, with one easy motion, safely move what you have chopped to your cooking pan or bowl. Its six-inch wide, flat, stainless steel mouth holds up to three cups, and its one-inch-high sides help prevent spills.

9.    Ergonomically designed knives lessen the strain on your hands and that allows you to use your entire arm when cutting foods. Look for a knife with a large handle that allows you to “saw” back and forth when cutting.

10.    Store plastic wrap in the freezer to make it easier to use. When it warms up, it will regain its cling.

Excerpted with permission from Arthritis: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier by Shelley Peterman Schwarz, and available for purchase from publisher Demos Medical Publishing, which publishes numerous health- and disability-related books on topics such as layperson’s guides to conditions, traveling with a disability, creating independent lifestyles, career and finance guides for people with disabilities, and more.

Arthritis: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier, by Shelley Peterman Schwarz. 2009 Demos Medical Publishing, LLC, New York, N.Y. 165 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1-932603-67-5.