Arthritis can turn personal care from a simple activity to a daunting chore. Sore, stiff fingers and joints can play havoc with your daily routine. Things you used to take for granted, like getting dressed, are now a production.

Thank goodness for Shelley Peterman Schwarz’s new book, Arthritis: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier. A person with chronic, degenerative herself, the author has taken a practical approach to managing everyday duties.

Tips that made the book did so because of their usefulness and low cost. You’ll find ways to make everything from shopping to housecleaning easier and faster.  Here, we’ve borrowed a few of her tips from the personal care section to whet your appetite for a book you won’t be able to put down.

1.    Gather all your clothing items together before you start to get dressed. You’ll save steps and time.

2.    Dress in front of a mirror. Seeing as you are doing can help uncooperative fingers do their work, and you are less likely to miss any buttons.

3.    Each night, select your clothing for the next day. This will not only save time and energy in the morning, but if you need assistance with buttons or zippers, you will be able to enlist the aid of a family member before he leaves the house.

4.    Nylon underwear makes pulling pants up and down easier than cotton underwear.

5.    Flosbrush makes flossing easy. If it is hard for you to hold and maneuver regular floss, this handy flosser on a toothbrush-style handle with angled neck and compact head will help you to floss even your back teeth with more control. The flosser comes with a variety of floss choices – premium, shred-resistant, mint-waxed, and even a fruit-flavored version that will appeal to children. Ask about this product at a drugstore near you.

6.    Pop-up tissues are easier to grasp than the kind that lie flat in the box.

7.    Look sharp with preknotted zipper ties. If you have difficulty tying a necktie, try adjustable, preknotted zipper ties designed for adults. Zipper ties are worn by putting th loop over the head, under the shirt collar, and then pulling downward.

8.    File down or round off the front tip of your shoe, if you trip on the end of your shoe when you walk.

9.    Organize small earrings in stacking ice cube trays. For easier access, you can attach clip-on earrings to a cake cooling rack that is hung on a wall.

10.    Sprinkle cornstarch into your nylon stockings, or onto the bottom of your feet and heels, to make it easier to pull stockings on.

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.