Tendon Transfer Rehabilitation
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Volume 6, Issue 2 www.exploringhandtherapy.com July 2006 From The Editors Desk In This Issue Hot summer days... we have some great EARN program. You can receive FREE Featured Article .......................................1 What’s Hot ........................................... 16 new releases to cool you off, check them CEU’s for reading this magazine. See In The Spotlight .......................................3 Splinting Tips .........................................16 out on page 8. details on page 14. See you online. In The Web .............................................6 Ask The Expert.......................................17 If your are studying for Certification in Newly released courses ..........................8 Test Answers .........................................21 Hand Therapy, don’t miss the Hand EHT’s magazine is for informational Therapy Certification Package purposes only and is not intended to be a Political Corner.......................................10 Ergo Tips and Tricks ..............................23 Discount PROMO. This package is substitute for professional medical advice, LEARN & EARN.....................................14 Modalities...............................................24 designed to help you study for the big day. diagnosis or treatment. Always consult Check out details on page 8. with your supervisor before implementing POP Quiz ...............................................14 EHT’s hand club is designed for ideas. networking, sharing, and learning Thank you to our sponsors for making this Hand while having fun. All of your posts are ng Th magazine possible. Please click on their ri e o r answered. You can even post photos for ll a ad (if viewing online) to learn more. pp pp y those perplexing cases and the club will xx y E E help you out. So don’t hesitate join today. ENJOY! w w m o w c . e T ® . See page 6 for details. x re o y p atm 2 G a p l o r ent e r i n g h a n d t h We had great response to our LEARN & Susan Weiss Nancy Falkenstein OTR, CHT OTR, CHT, CEES Featured Article By Debby Schwartz, OTR/L, CHT Tendon Transfer introducing donor muscles to take Now we will review each Rehabilitation: over the actions of the non-working of the fundamentals. Strategies for Success muscles. They help to enhance function. Positive outcomes require 1. Pre-operative Therapy Working with tendon transfer careful planning, preparation, and therapist creativity to facilitate patients can be a challenging The role of the hand therapist these donor muscles into action. yet an extremely rewarding doesn’t necessarily begin after experience. These are patients surgery. As part of a team who through trauma, a disease The following ten important approach, the hand therapist process, paralysis, or maybe a fundamentals will help to clarify contributes significantly to the congenital abnormality have lost the tendon transfer process, and preoperative care and treatment some vital component of upper guide you in establishing strategies of tendon transfer patients as well. extremity functioning. When for success with your patients. Perhaps you already know the speaking of the need for tendon 1. Pre-operative Therapy patient and have reached a plateau transfers, we are really speaking 2. Patient Education and in functional recovery after trauma, Conditioning of imbalance in the hand. The leaving your patient with significant 3. Patient History muscles that are no longer deficits. In anticipation of further 4. Protocol functioning have left their antagonist 5. Donors surgery, scar adhesions, edema muscles unchecked. And this 6. Splinting and soft tissue must be addressed can lead to additional problems 7. Functional goal setting and minimized. Joint contractures of contractures and deformity. 8. Activities or limits in passive range of motion The process of tendon transfers 9. Facilitation techniques can be treated with stretching and offers a rebalancing of the hand by 10. Strengthening continued on page 3 1 2 splinting. You can help your patient (and patient’s family if working with there a traumatic event, multiple anticipate the benefits of the tendon a child) must understand what surgical procedures and/ or therapy transfer surgery by the use of can be accomplished with tendon visits before tendon transfer surgery splints that replicate the action of transfer surgery and what cannot was offered? Was this a deficit the transfer. For example, a wide be accomplished. The concept from birth that had never been thumb abduction cone helps the of a normal hand is simply not an addressed before? A paralysis patient realize the significance of option. However, significant and of one peripheral nerve, or a thumb abduction for better grasp important functional improvements disease process that progressively of objects. Better still, maybe you can become a reality if the patient worsened? It is helpful to note have been working on strengthening is up for the task and recognizes where previous scars formed, how muscles in advance of their use as his role. He must understand why the soft tissue feels in the extremity, donor muscles. All of these pre- a period of immobilization follows and the condition of the joints before operative interventions enhance the surgery, and what to expect when and after surgery. The success of tendon transfer surgery! active range of motion is initiated. patient’s tolerance for He should also have a sense of pain, ability to cope, 2. Patient Education how much therapy is anticipated, level of patience and when he will be seen by the and understanding The patient must have a solid surgeon in follow up visits. are also assessed. understand of the entire process This helps the and timing of surgery and 3. Patient History therapist develop rehabilitation. The therapist is best an appropriate and qualified for this role as patient The therapist in turn should have individual plan of educator especially if a patient- an equally solid understanding of intervention. therapist relationship has already what the patient has been through Continued on page 5 been established. The patient prior to arriving in the clinic. Was In the SPOTLIGHT! Laurie Roundtree, OTR/L, CHT owned by our belated friend Ann England, On the reverse side, I love mallet one of the pioneers in hand therapy injuries, because they are so simple and predictable, and my results are Q: How long have you been doing hand therapy? nearly always excellent. The keys are patient education, skin care, and capable splinting. A: Fresh out of school in 1980 I began Q: What do you find is the most working for two Hand Surgeons. At that challenging diagnosis you treat? time there weren’t many hand therapists around. I learned a lot about surgeries and A: What I find most challenging equates Q: Where did you receive anatomy, and the importance of attending with another of my favorite diagnoses: your OT degree from? surgeons’ conferences periodically. complex crush injuries with multiple-system trauma that keep you constantly on your A: I graduated from Tufts Q: What is your favorite diagnosis and why? toes and necessitate problem-solving on University in Boston in 1980 a daily basis. If there are open wounds, Q: What type of setting A: MP arthroplasties are a lot of fun to me. I particularly enjoy the utilization of light do you work in? There’s nothing like the magic of a patient therapy (cold laser) and advanced wound seeing their hand normally aligned after dressings to accellerate the healing. A: I co-own a private practice in Thousand- years of deformity. I love the precision Q: What areas of hand and upper Oaks, California, with my best friend splinting involved, and enjoy fabricating Heidi Bowers-Dutra (Yes, it’s possible extremity rehab. do you want custom neoprene supports for the later to expand your expertise in? to be a business partner with your best phase. (I haven’t seen a commercial anti- Continued on page 6 friend!). The practice was originally ulnar-deviation splint that I like yet.) 3 4 tape…and then I think of all the tion. gram in Oakland, CA. realize what they can do with this person with a little extra instruc- Samuel Merritt College’s Hand Therapy pro- therapist's satisfaction when they new therapist, and even the lay Tracey is currently an Adjunct Instructor for level in Rheumatology and Hand Therapy. with the tape is seeing another is friendly to the new user, the the US including guest lectures at the University than seeing my patient's improve Because of it's flexibility, the tape in Canada and the US, taught seminars across Tracey has presented at 6 national conferences The only thing more satisfying respond to the skill of the user. been an educator and a program developer. toire for many years to come. practice and has the flexibility to 1993. Throughout her career, she has always Hand Center in Kentfield, CA since March, remain in my therapeutic reper- This is a tool that responds to She has been a Hand Therapist at Kentfield invention of Tex tape. It will or in palpating for a problem. opening The Arthritis Center in San Mateo, CA. ogy. She then moved to California to join in I couldn't be more grateful for the there is in myofascial techniques 3 years in general orthopaedics, and rheumatol- there is art in the fingertips as the University of Calgary (Foothills) Hospital for University of Alberta in Canada. She worked at rehabilitation. There is clearly a science, but of Science in Occupational Therapy at the Tex tape at some point in their Bachelor of Arts in Gerontology and a Bachelor Tracey Airth-Edblom, OTR, CHT received a from at least one application of that particular layer of tissue. than this, they could all benefit your tape application to affect Though I choose more judiciously are taping, and how you intend patients that stroll into our clinic. clear in your own mind what you could easily apply to 99% of the know your anatomy, and to be Tex tape is the one tool that I of the tissue.