Hand Therapy

At CHOC, our physical therapists work with patients from birth through age 21 to make life easier by using therapeutic exercise and handling to increase movement and function. The Rehabilitation Services Department at CHOC provides hand therapy for children and young adults. All of our therapies are designed to meet each patient’s specific needs.

Physical therapists use a number of different therapies to improve grip, strength and range of motion using a variety of specialized treatments. Constraint-induced therapy is one way that therapists help patients in hand therapy. In this type of therapy, a patient’s better-functioning hand is restrained so that the affected hand must be used more often. Other types of therapy include stretching and increasing range of motion of the hand and fingers to improve fine motor function and the use of splints to improve the flexibility of the hand with a prolonged and constant stretch.

We use hand therapy to help treat:

• Arthrogryposis.
• Radial deficiency (club hand).
• Thumb hypoplasia.
• Syndactyly and symbrachydactyly.
• Camptodactyly.
• Fractures of the wrist, hand or fingers.
• Traumatic injuries to tendons, ligaments and nerves of the fingers, hand or wrist that may or may not require surgery.
• Reconstructive surgeries of the hand, including opponensplasty and pollicization of index finger.