26 October 2010

1:30-5:00pm   3.5 hours

Accumulated Hours: 27.5

Hand therapy patients commonly receive similar exercises/programs for many different injuries. When a patient first enters therapy they are commonly placed under heat to loosen the area that will be worked on in the session. From there patients receive a variety of stretching, massaging, and strengthening exercises. Heat can also be applied with a machine that can reach the tissue within the hand by applying noticeable heat to the surface of the hand. Many strengthening exercises include using putty, rice, clothes pins, and towels. After therapy patients are put under ice to reduce swelling caused by the amount of exercises completed. Reducing swelling also decreases pain in the hand and protects from injury/pain for the remainder of the day.

  Therapy today was slow with only a couple patients so I did not view too much. However, I took an inventory of the tools used for hand therapy and thus realized how common tools are used on many patients with a wide variety of cases.