Treating pain in the back of the hand with physical therapy

Pain in Back of Hand

Your hands are vital to many of your normal daily tasks, but you might not realize how important they are until they begin to hurt. 

The reality is that hand pain is a common musculoskeletal complaint. One study reveals that almost 17% of the patients surveyed had felt hand pain in the past month. If you’re feeling pain in the back of your hand, then physical therapy can help you treat it. In fact, there are multiple therapy techniques that therapists can use to decrease hand pain. 

Three physical therapy methods that can help the pain in the back of your hand

Physical therapists will need to evaluate your hand before treating the pain in the back of your hand. After all, their efforts will be more effective if they know the cause of your pain. Your evaluation could include tests of your pain level and hand and wrist range of motion. It could also involve your physical therapist asking questions about your daily routine. 

Putting this information together allows your physical therapist to develop a hand therapy plan that’s personalized to you. This plan can make use of techniques like: 

  1. Joint mobilization — Arthritis and other issues can make your wrist and finger joints painful. This pain can also spill over into the back of your hands. Your physical therapist can use joint mobilization to help reduce your pain. One study of patients with hand osteoarthritis reports that joint mobilization helped decrease pain by about 25 points after one week. 
  1. Therapeutic exercises — The exercises in a hand therapy plan can offer several benefits: They can help improve the function of your hand. Additionally, such exercises can help improve range of motion and decrease pain. A study on hand exercises reveals that they helped reduce left hand pain during activity by over five points on average. 
  1. Ergonomics recommendations — Ergonomics is the study of improving work environment safety. Part of this is ensuring that your hands and wrists are in the optimal position while you’re working. Your physical therapist may look at how you perform work tasks like typing. They may then recommend switching to an ergonomic keyboard or mouse to help decrease your hand pain. 

Excel Sports & Physical Therapy in Creve Coeur, MO, offers treatment for pain in the back of the hand

Tired of living with pain in the back of your hand or hands? Our hand therapy specialists at Excel PT in Creve Coeur, Missouri, can help you find treatment that can reduce your pain. We’ll first do a free screening to pinpoint the cause of your hand pain. Then, our specialists will construct a personalized hand therapy program for you that will be designed to reduce your pain and prevent it from coming back. 

Don’t have the time to come to our therapy clinic for help? No worries! Our team offers therapy services that can help you treat your hand pain from home, including at-home care and virtual therapy sessions. 

Contact our team today for more information about our hand therapy services or to schedule an initial appointment.