Home Hand Therapy

“The hand is the visible part of the brain.”
— Immanuel Kant

Our hands are intricate, complex structures that we use to interact with our environment and with each other. They allow us to work, play, care for ourselves and others, and create. We rely on an exact balance between a complex network of bones and soft tissue receiving and providing constant messages from the brain in order to function. When that balance is lost through injury or disease, we loose the capacity for optimal function.

Hand therapy is a specialized area of practice for occupational therapists or physiotherapists who have a keen interest in helping to restore or maximize an individual’s function as it relates to the upper limb.

The Hand Certification Commission of the American Society of Hand Therapists defines hand therapy as follows:

Hand therapy is the art and science of rehabilitation of the upper limb, which includes thehand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder girdle. It is a merging of occupational therapy and physicaltherapy theory and practice that combines comprehensive knowledge of the structure of theupper limb with function and activity. Using specialized skills and assessment, planning andtreatment, hand therapists provide therapeutic interventions to prevent dysfunction, restorefunction and/or reverse the progression of pathology of the upper limb in order to enhance anindividual’s ability to execute tasks and participate fully in life situations.