Hand Helpers: Living Life to the Fullest

Occu­pa­tions are not nec­es­sar­i­ly a paid job but can be con­sid­ered the dai­ly tasks we like to spend time doing. They are dif­fer­ent for every­one and often evolve over one’s life span. Some exam­ples of occu­pa­tions include golf, cro­chet­ing, bin­go, typ­ing, dress­ing and bathing. 

The hand is essen­tial to our occu­pa­tion­al day-to-day func­tions. With­out the use of our hands, basic activ­i­ties of dai­ly liv­ing can become chal­leng­ing. The table below out­lines the impact of los­ing a sin­gle dig­it, in the hand or arm, on one’s over­all abil­i­ties. For exam­ple, los­ing or injur­ing a thumb results in almost 40% func­tion­al loss of the hand. It is clear how dis­ease, dis­abil­i­ty, injury or the aging process can com­pro­mise life sig­nif­i­cant­ly; los­ing this inde­pen­dence can cause addi­tion­al hard­ships and increase costs of care.

Hand Per­cent­age Loss

There are many cir­cum­stances that can lead to mobil­i­ty hand loss, direct­ly affect­ing people’s occu­pa­tion of any age, including: 

• Aging: Arthri­tis, pain, con­trac­ture (per­ma­nent tight­en­ing of tissue)
• Dis­ease: Can­cer, dia­betes, stroke
• Phys­i­cal or devel­op­men­tal delays
• Phys­i­cal defects

For­tu­nate­ly, occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py is a valu­able resource to help patients live life to the fullest, regard­less of age, health or addi­tion­al cir­cum­stances. The Amer­i­can Occu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­py Asso­ci­a­tion states, ​“Occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py max­i­mizes health, well-being and qual­i­ty of life for all peo­ple, pop­u­la­tions and com­mu­ni­ties through effec­tive solu­tions that facil­i­ta­tion par­tic­i­pa­tion in dai­ly living.” 

Occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists’ job is to eval­u­ate and lis­ten to patients’ needs, iden­ti­fy what they want to be able to do and why they are not able to do it. This strat­e­gy includes the usage of ​“hand helpers”, oth­er­wise known as adap­tive equip­ment, that can help main­tain occu­pa­tion­al iden­ti­ty and independence.

Adap­tive Equip­ment Examples

Con­di­tion	Equip­ment	Descrip­tion
Hand pain/​Contractures		Ortho­sis devices are used to reduce pain and swelling caused by injury or disease.

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Eat­ing and Oral Hygiene

Weight­ed uten­sils help reduce tremors and weigh down a user’s hand to make eat­ing and brush­ing teeth eas­i­er to manage.

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Dress­ing and Bathing

Sock aides, grab­bers, long-han­dled shoe­horns, long-han­dled sponges and but­ton hooks reduce the need to bend, twist and use affect­ed fine motor skills.

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Toi­let­ing

“Com­fort Bot­tom Wiper” hold­ers and raised toi­let seats assist those with mobil­i­ty lim­i­ta­tions, pain and/​or reduced strength and balance.

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Com­put­er and Ergonomics

An ergonom­ic mouse and key­board reduce stress on your ten­dons and joints, alle­vi­at­ing pain and injury.

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Hand Sta­bil­i­ty

Easy-to-hold uni­ver­sal cuffs reduce the impact of hand tremors.

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Pho­tos by Unknown Author licensed under CC BY-SA.

If you are expe­ri­enc­ing a loss of hand func­tion, you may ben­e­fit from an occu­pa­tion­al eval­u­a­tion. At DuPage Med­ical Group (DMG), our occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists will part­ner with you to deter­mine the cause of any poten­tial issues and cre­ate a per­son­al­ized treat­ment plan, that may include adap­tive devices, to enable you to retain your inde­pen­dence and qual­i­ty of life.

Click here to learn more about occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py or call 630−967−2000 to sched­ule an appoint­ment today.

¹Capek, K. D., Hugh­es, B. D., & War­den, G. D. (2018). 63 — Func­tion­al seque­lae and dis­abil­i­ty assess­ment. In D. N. Hern­don (Ed.), Total Burn Care (Fifth Edi­tion) (pp. 673 – 678.e1). Elsevier.