ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how utilities are used in everyday practice by people with different degrees of physical and cognitive handicap. In professional practice, utilities are defined as those objects that are offered to patients in order to ease their daily lives by compensating for disturbances in certain functions. Thus, the concept is operationally defined with reference to the intended technological use. Objectification/subjectivation is the process through which the socially produced character of technology is mediated through the use and ascription of meaning. The patient's daily life situation had changed in such a way that the utility could no longer be used as planned. Technologies can be more or less connected to a specific location or dependent on certain practical conditions, e.g. an electric toothbrush has to have electricity and is designed to be used in the bathroom or somewhere at least where there is access to water and a drain.
