Hand Therapy
Hand therapy is a specialized area of treatment that focuses on personalized services for individuals with upper extremity injuries. Hand therapists, both occupational and physical therapists, are highly trained to provide specialized care, allowing the individual to return to maximal functional use. Rock Valley hand therapists provide tailored treatment plans based on the individual patient, not the condition, for return to optimal functionality. Rock Valley hand therapists have special certifications, working closely with physicians and surgeons to ensure the most comprehensive care for their patients.
Who Can Benefit from Hand Therapy?
Anyone experiencing limitations with upper extremity functionality when completing daily tasks, work, exercise, sports, or recreational activities can benefit from hand therapy. Patients may be restricted due to specific injury, injury, or prolonged activities resulting in chromic limitations. Hand therapists provide interventions that range from preventative care to post-operative rehabilitation for a wide variety of upper extremity conditions.
Preventative Care:
- Patient Education
- Custom Splinting
- Strengthening and Flexibility Programs
Postoperative Care:
- Wound Care
- Scar Management
- Protective Splinting
- Edema Control
- Diagnosis-Specific Exercise Programs
Rehabilitation:
- Diagnosis-Specific, Following Injury
- Sensory Re-Education
- Work Conditioning
- Pain Management
Customized Splinting:
- Post-Operative
- Deformity Correction
- Contracture Reduction
- Sports
Specific Conditions Include:
- Crush Injuries
- Fractures and Dislocations
- Tendon Injuries
- Nerve Injuries
- Cumulative Trauma
- Arthritis
- Pain Syndromes
- Sports Injuries
- Amputations
Occupational Therapy:
What exactly is occupational therapy? So you’re like a physical therapist? Do you work just with kids?
So many questions and so little time! Occupational Therapists get asked questions like this and more on an almost daily basis. It’s the field that so little of the population understands, but ALL could benefit from at some point in their life!
What exactly is occupational therapy? Occupational therapy is a holistic rehabilitative approach that focuses primarily on the person’s daily activities (i.e. occupations) to improve their independence. Your occupation may be a parent, caregiver, swimmer, student, child, writer, construction worker or cook. An occupational therapist’s job is to provide intervention for you to get back to what you do each and every day and do it well!
So… you’re like a physical therapist? There are multiple areas of rehabilitative therapy that blend between occupational and physical therapy, but each type of therapy is unique. Occupational therapists often specialize in areas similar to physical therapy such as pelvic floor or lymphedema, while others are uniquely tailored to one or the other.
Regardless of the difference, OT’s and PT’s thrive off working together to create the best potential outcomes in their patients.
So you work just with kids? Occupational therapists treat people from birth to elderly. Pediatrics is just one area of specialty. OT’s can also be skilled in working with the elderly to help with continued independence as well as otherwise healthy individuals with injuries to the upper body. OTs can also help with cognitive skills for safety and even driving. Other specialty areas in occupational therapy include (but not limited to):
- Orthopedic Therapy
- Occupational and Hand Therapy
- Pediatrics (including developmental skills and sensory processing)
- Incontinence Retraining/Pelvic Floor
- Lymphedema
- Cognitive Rehabilitation
- Cancer Rehabilitation (including Breast Cancer)
- And more!!