Advice from a Certified Hand Therapist: Techniques to Reduce Joint Pain

For this post, we are sharing a video that demonstrates many techniques you can use on a daily basis to protect your joints. In past posts, we’ve discussed joint protection and gave some examples and illustrations of this. (See Protecting Your Joints and Living With(out) Thumb Pain.)

The video below shows some of those examples in action. The video has no sound, so don’t worry about turning up the volume. As you watch, you will be given some practical pointers. There are some questions in the video, so put on your thinking cap and see what ideas you come up with to take care of your joints.

After watching the video, you may have questions about specific activities and how to make changes to decrease your joint pain. Talking to a certified hand therapist can help you apply these principles to your specific activities, which can help you to keep doing what you want in life.

Keep the following questions in mind as you watch. Feel free to pause the video to make notes.

• What tasks are you performing that cause pain in your hand? (Think of your fingers, thumb and wrist.)
• What changes can you make in your activities to decrease your pain?

Adam Holbrook is a Certified Hand Therapist and a member of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT).