Our Services

Our hand therapy benefits patients post-surgery, those with repetitive strain injuries, sports-related, home, or workplace injuries.

Individuals who suffer from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions impacting the use of their hands.

  • Finger grip
  • closing a shirt button with a button hook
  • button hook assistance device
  • Hand and arm splinting device
  • hand and arm splinting
  • corrected grip holding a plastic bottle cap
  • hand grasping lid of plastic bottle
  • casted finger
  • elbow splint
  • hand splint

Conservative Treatments

Whether its a sprain or a strain, over-use injury or strengthening that your need, please contact us for an appointment.

Hand Therapists boast their ultimate skill; which is the marriage of their detailed knowledge of upper limb anatomy and the understanding and appreciation of functional participation in occupation.

Hand Therapists have an array of tools to assess, treat and strengthen.

Assessment

Hand Therapists appreciate the complexities of the hand and upper limb. The assessment of dysfunction depends of the knowledge of the anatomy and our highly developed prehensile abilities. Assessment can be divided in two main categories: Neurovascular and Functional. Some of our more common assessments include, but are not limited to;

  • Manual Muscle Testing
  • Dynamometry (Grip strength)
  • Goniometry (Range of Motion)
  • Sensibility (Monofilaments, threshold tests, functional)
  • Edema

Edema Management

Edema is basically persistent swelling. There are times when swelling is normal and necessary (like when there is an injury) and then there are times when the persistent presence of swelling can be dangerous, resulting in unnecessary loading of surrounding soft tissues.

Custom made Pressure Garments

Pressure Garments are elastic skin-tight fitting garments which are used in various treatments such as edema management and scar management.

Graded Motor Imagery & Mirror Therapy

This is a specialised modality utilised by a trained therapist in the management of ongoing pain conditions and in sensory and motor retraining. The principle of mirror therapy (MT) is based on the visual illusion created when a reflection of the non-affected limb is used to trick the brain into thinking movement has occurred without pain. A Mirror box is a device which allows the clinician to create this illusion. The box is designed with one mirror in the centre where hands/limbs are placed on either side. The affected limb is kept covered and the unaffected limb is positioned in front of the mirror, where the reflection can be seen, this gives the viewer the illusion that they are looking at both their limbs simultaneously.

Sensory- and Motor re-education

Occasionally, after a lengthy period of immobilisation or an injury to a nerve, a person might find that the ‘feeling’ in the injured hand is not like it used to be. Sensory retraining refers to the various strategies and techniques a therapist will employ in order to re-learn how various textures feel in the hand. Similarly, after a long period of immobilisation, muscles have atrophied and movement might feel clumsy and strange.

Custom made Splints or Prescription of Prefabricated splints

There are some great prefabricated items one can buy off-the-shelf. However, at Grasp Hand Therapy, we appreciate that not one hand is the same, we don’t all fit into a universal mold. And although universal designs exist, it doesn’t mean they are universally suitable to your injury. That is why we marry our intimate knowledge of tissue-healing with our modern splinting skills to not only fabricate a splint that fits you, but that also is best suited to support your injury.

Why splint?

  • To immobilise/rest/ protect after an acute injury, operation or rest inflamed tissues
  • To block certain movement during early post-op phase
  • To facilitate function or to assist/maintain range of motion
  • To regain what was once lost….CMMS (Casting Motion to Mobilise Stiffness)

Prescription of Assistive Devices

  • Button Hooks
  • Bath aids
  • Food preparation
  • Writing aids
  • Modification to existing tools
  • After peripheral nerve injuries

Post-operative rehabilitation

  • Carpal Tunnel Release
  • Flexor- and Extensor Tendon Repairs
  • Joint Arthroplasties
  • Wrist surgeries
  • Fractures (ORIF and EX FIXES)
  • Trigger finger release
hand therapist massaging a client hand

Scar management

  • Resistive scar massage
  • Silicon treatment

Supportive Strapping Techniques

Elastic and rigid-taping on the skin can be used to immobilise, support or rest injured structures.

Wound Care and Suture removal

As part of post-operative treatment, wound care is incorporated in therapy.

Conditions Treated

Grasp Hand Therapy offers thorough, in-depth clinical examination to determine the best course of treatment for any of the following conditions;

Rheumatoid and Osteo-Arthritis (Base of Thumb, STT or wrist arthritis)

  • Inter-phalangeal joint amputations
  • Ray amputations
  • Stumb-bandaging/ shaping and desensitisation
  • Golfer’s elbow
  • Tennis Elbow
  • DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis
  • Trigger finger or thumb
  • Tendon injuries (Mallet injuries & central slip)
  • Extensor tendon injuries/repairs
  • Flexor tendon injuries /repairs
  • Non-displaced fractures
  • Surgically reduced fractures
  • Volar plate avulsion fractures
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Cubital Tunnel Syndrome
  • Radial tunnel syndrome
  • Finger/thumb/wrist ligament injuries
  • Contractures
  • Common finger sprains

Congenital or acquired Deformities (Boutonniere and Swan neck deformities)