Who knew that a back scratcher would be the best reacher I have ever found? Many people with physical disabilities know the good ‘ol Sammons (now Preston Sammons medical) catalog. It’s on most physical and occupational therapists bookshelves. The products are durable and designed by disability professionals. Even I have a couple of trigger reachers that were lovingly given to me in hopes of giving me more independence as a child. But, who wants to carry a large, very clunky conspicuous reacher that looks like the janitor’s trash picker?
My search ended when I did a search under “telescoping”. Lo and behold, I found a telescoping backscratcher. Whoa! It fits the Alton Brown rule of “more than one purpose” as a back scratcher and reacher. It fits my wishlist completely. It’s compact, light, multipurpose, and most importantly doesn’t look like anything other than a back scratcher. Secretly its my 2 foot (technically 22 inches) reacher to take down my healthy bag of chips at the top shelf. And it’s very affordable!
We highly recommend a telescoping bear claw back scratcher in every LP’s arsenal for items out of reach. It’s perfect for the grocery store or Home Depot to grab that pesky item too high, but not too heavy. Obviously, I’m not going to use it to take down my son’s favorite jar of peanut butter. But, what makes the bear claw different from similar reachers is that in addition to the curved claws, there’s a big open space in the ‘paw’ area that you can use to lock onto the corner end of the item.
The Best Bear Claw
If you do a Google search for Bear Claw, you may be overwhelmed as we were with the seemingly thousands of resellers selling similar items. So we decided to order a bunch and see which is the best.
Life is like a box of chocolates… Some name-brand bear claws, some no-name ones. The BEAR CLAW!™ is in the middle next to the Cutie Claw™ in yellow. You can see how the BEAR CLAW!™ has a nice thick handle for gripping.
While all the Bear Claws we bought will do the job, there was an obvious difference in quality. Some of them immediately fell apart after we received them, although a nice dab of Gorilla Glue has held them together since (both the top claw and the bottom handle came off!). In our opinion, the best Bear Claw back scratcher to use as a reacher is the Bear Claw Extendable Telescopic Back Scratcher (with a UPC code of 722950206799 and item number #B-CLAW). At the time of posting, 3rd-parties on Amazon were selling this back scratcher for about $5 shipped or a 4 pack for about $12.
In case you’re looking for a reacher for a younger child with smaller hands, the Cutie Claw is another reacher to consider. It comes in pastel colors, is only 7 inches when closed and telescopes to 18 inches.