The Best Assistant I Ever Bought for Under $20

Do you work in a nursing home? Or ever provide care in any kind of long-term care setting for any reason? Maybe you're another music therapist like me and have a need to sit at the bedside with patients for an extended period, or maybe you're a nurse practitioner or an MSW who is tired of crouching or bending to visit briefly with patients, wishing they weren't so inaccessible over there in the hospital bed.

Maybe, like me, you've noticed something about these facilities, and it probably gives you just as much trouble as it does me.

Where are the chairs for visitors to patient's rooms?

I frequent a large percentage of the nursing facilities in my area as part of my hospice work and I run into the same problem everywhere I go. Those rooms are not designed to accommodate extended visitors because there is nowhere to sit, and not much to sit on.

You've probably found the work-arounds I did, like crouching on the edge of the AC unit, or scaring up one of the heavy chairs from the dining room, which will have arms on it if you can even find one to borrow. Or maybe you scared yourself silly the first time you sat on the edge of a bed that has a bed alarm. I didn't make that mistake more than once!

This problem bugged me for the first nearly two years of field work. I resisted trying to pack anything else along with me because I already carry a guitar, a nursing bag of rhythm instruments, cleaning and sanitizing supplies, and the tablet with the OnSong library. I didn't want one more thing to cart around.

But then, finally, I found something that met my criteria for riding along.  This delightful "assistant" weighs in at just about two pounds, it's self-contained in that it provides its own carrying strap and closure system, and it sets up and down in one step. It's light and small enough I can toss it on my back along with my guitar and not even notice it's there. It's durable and easy to clean. Now I can position myself almost anywhere I need to be relative to my patients, whether they are in a facility or a private home. And my back thanks me at the end of the day of using the iso-principle.

 Travel Chair shown here with large dog and small cats, for scale (and cuteness!)

I wouldn't recommend this if it hadn't been such a hardworking assistant to me and proved its worth in the field time and time again. It goes for under $20.00 on Amazon and if you're an independent contractor or self-employed music therapist, it's also tax-deductible on your Schedule C. You can get it here.

Please let me know in the comments if you have run into this particular irk and you have found an "assistant" that works for you!