Hot Drink Flask Holder and Drinking Tube
A stand and drinking tube for hot drink flasks for a client with MS.
The Challenge
Our client has MS, and his carers leave him with four small flip-top flasks of his favourite hot drink to last him until the next care visit. But these have occasionally been knocked over as our client struggles to both hold and open them and insert a straw, and the arrangement was far from satisfactory.
Products like the Neater Drinker were considered by his OT but wouldn’t fully address the issue, and our client is able to suck drink up a straw anyway so the Neater Drinker would be a bit overkill.
Our client making his own hot drinks using a kettle tipper or hot water dispenser were considered to be too risky for him – which is why the flasks were being used in the first place.
The solution
Engineer Ian Midgley made a stand out of sections of water resistant (green) MDF which was then primed and painted. A strong photographic gooseneck arm (by photo accessories company Manfrotto) was secured to the stand with a 3/8 UNC bolt, and a section of aluminium bar was threaded with a standard photographic tripod thread to add some length to the flexi-arm. A hydration pack tube and “bite valve” (typically used by cyclists and runners) clips to the aluminium bar using spring steel “terry clips” where edges of the clips (which tend to be a bit sharp) have been protected with adhesive lined heat-shrink sleeve.
The tube can easily be unclipped and removed for cleaning by carers using a hydration tube cleaning brush we also supplied. Aluminium clamps secure the stand to a circular glass table in our client’s lounge allowing him to take a drink from his powered wheelchair – and to move the tube to the next flask as and when required.
The benefit
Drinking a hot drink is now safer and more convenient for our client.
