Arthritis Edition: Treatment Options

Welcome back to Arthritis Edition! In our last blog post we discussed one of the most common conditions affecting the hands, with osteoarthritis being a leading cause of pain, stiffness, and reduced function in the joints. In this post we want to share some education regarding joint protection strategies to help alleviate unnecessary stress through the smaller, more easily irritated joints and to protect them against flare-ups.

Oedema or swelling management – swelling often contributes to the feeling of stiffness or ache within the joints when trying to get moving first thing in the morning, after a long time resting or maintaining the same position. Often, we use snug fitting gloves that help to retain our body heat, and light compression to control swelling overnight or though periods of the day as required.

Maintaining joint mobility – I like to think of the phrase “Motion is lotion and rest is rust’ when talking about maintaining joint mobility.  It is better to be able to complete movements with less force going through our joints regularly throughout the day in smaller bursts to help maintain movement than to try and aggressively force the joints into extremes of movement once or twice a day which often causes an increase in pain levels.

Task modification – this involves identifying your goals and areas of interest that you currently feel are not being fully met, then adjusting or tailoring tasks to better suit your specific needs. This may be something as simple as using some non-slip matting to assist with opening stubborn jars or lids, or built-up grips for utensils, tool handles, and many other options.

Custom support to specific joints – these are often recommended when symptoms are constantly aggravated by specific activities or tasks. Instead, these can be done whilst wearing a support brace that helps to maintain function and support the affected joint to avoid excessive aggravation.

Maintaining strength - it is important to be able to maintain our grip strength as it is found to be a good indicator of overall health.  Unfortunately strengthening an area normally requires repetitive or sustained exercises that put load through our joints to increase our muscle strength.  If we do this wrong, we can often just recreate the aggravating factors that we are trying to avoid.  A tailored exercise program can range from targeting small individual muscles, like those around our thumb, to help maintain good pinch position and support of the joints, to big muscle groups with a focus on endurance to help find a sustainable level of exercise that doesn’t increase pain levels.

We hope you have found this post informative, and we look to expanding on hand therapy education in the future - please send us your feedback! If you feel that an appointment at our clinic would be beneficial to assist with your issues, please feel free to contact Your Hand Therapy on 0499074603 or at admin@yourhandtherapy.com.au so that we can help you keep doing the things you love with less pain.