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I walked past an older guy with a cane while I was using mine and he asked me if I wanted to race

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!

This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.

This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

The biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!

A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.

Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height will make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)

(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)

When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane, then the good leg, and THEN the leg that needs help.

Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.

In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.

Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!

(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)

The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!

Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.

The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you're using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!

This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!

However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.

Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)

Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.

Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)

(my canes, for reference)

If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!

When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!

For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.

When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)

When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)

That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!

Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!

hello mr president.

svech and jack in the same picture😧🙏

My karate instructor regularly tells us that you can't take most weapons just anywhere but you can take a CANE wherever, and this is what I think of every. single. time.

"You can take a cane into a restaurant, on an airplane-"

INTO THE HALLS OF ROHAN.

Hello gamers, local disabled cane user is gonna teach you how to design a cane.

Tl:dr: design a cane based on comfortability and the disability of the character

First things first, you need to know why you’re character needs a cane. Do they have chronic pain? Unhealed injury? Muscle or joint issues? Do they have poor blood circulation which makes them dizzy? Do they need the cane all the time or does their disability fluctuate? Do they use a wheelchair or a walker sometimes?

There’s a lot you should know about a characters ability/disability in order to find what type of mobility aid they should be using.

There are a bunch of different kinds of canes/crutches. The 4 on the left are crutches. The difference between canes and crutches are, crutches are meant to keep weight off your legs as much as possible, and generally you use a crutch on each arm. Canes are used for stability and you usually only use one. Folding canes are great for people who only use their cane sometimes

Great! You’ve picked either a cane or crutches for your character. I’m done right? WRONG. Cane handles.

This is probably the most important part of canes because if you have the wrong handle your wrist will die.

I gently kiss all the canes on the left, they are all very good for grip and wrist, although the middle left is designed for left or right hand so you cannot switch hands with it.

The ones on the right are also pretty good, they wouldn’t be my first choice but they are still great. The top one is also very good as it has a wristband so you can’t drop it as easily. (Trust me when I say I DROP MY CANE SO MUCH)

Sigh. The middle cane handles… the bottom one I have never actually seen but it looks like it would kill my wrist. The top one is uncomfortable for long period uses, but it is good for if you’re a shepherd. And the pimp cane… the knob cane… it’s awful. Just no. It’s hard to grip, it is unstable it’s bad it’s awful I throw it into a fire. Please don’t give your character, they don’t deserve that pain

Now you know the basic ergonomic things, there are different shafts for canes and crutches

You can really get creative with this type of thing, just as long as it looks stable enough.

Here are some good examples of pretty canes that are ergonomic and good to use! (featuring victor arcane who i adore)

Add some cute details to the cane if you want! You can add stickers, colours, grip support. And while I love the concept of cane swords those are very unstable, if you want a cane weapon you can make it lead weighted, put knives in it. A poison vile in the shaft. Be creative.

Just some of these components are important to consider with a disabled character. There’s a lot more to consider with wheelchairs and walkers which I don’t have the experience with.

If you do have any questions my asks are always open to questions about this stuff! I’d love to help if you’re making a disabled character.

Hugs🫂🫶💘

snow on the canes

As it becomes winter again... and as somebody who once popped out his kneecap by slipping on ice, I would like to remind my followers that slip on shoe spikes exist.

You can usually get ones like these for around $10, and they're really worth it. They're made of rubber, so you can just fold them up, and I've been using mine for a couple of years now.

Hot take but canes are not a limited resource. Most mobility aids aren’t but canes especially. Canes are $20 at a lot of stores like CVS, Walmart, etc. You aren’t taking that resource away from “real” disabled people (hint: you ARE a real disabled person) in fact buying more canes creates more demand and works to make more stores carry them for better prices. You aren’t faking being disabled or hurting disabled people, you’re working to make canes more accessible which is helping disabled people.

Get the cane.

I would be like the guy behind Xiumin, dumbstruck until it was over.

Exo members + the cane ↳ Fan cams: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

BOO hey girlypops, I'm back

The last time I went to Canes the music in the bathroom was deafening. This time it is almost a whisper. Who is in charge of this? Why are there no standards? By whatever deity that holds power in this field strike down those who play bathroom volume as a whimsy of life and bring order and structure to this god fearing establishment