Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists at Summit Medical Group primarily focus on hand therapy. Our strategies and occupational therapy treatments are designed to help restore and improve hand function, including:

• Increasing range of motion
• Increasing strength
• Reducing pain and swelling
• Mobilizing joints and soft tissue
• Preventing injuries
• Remodeling scars
• Caring for wounds
• Re-educating sensory skills

Our experienced occupational therapists specialize in evaluating and treating orthopedic conditions and upper extremity injury in people of all ages. They can examine your hands and tell you what approach is safe and will work best for you. They also can improve the way your hands feel and function through hand rehabilitation / hand therapy services.

In addition, our occupational therapists conduct work station evaluations to prevent hand-, wrist-, elbow-, and arm-related injuries.

What is hand therapy?

Hand therapy involves a variety of hand rehabilitation techniques to regain as much function to the hands as possible. The goal of hand therapy is to strengthen and restore use of your hands after an injury, surgery, or disease.

The hand is a complex part of the body comprised of joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons, nerves, blood vessels, and bones that work together to allow wide range of motion. When one of these parts of the hand is impaired, functioning is quickly diminished or lost.

Our specially trained occupational therapists will teach you about the safe and proper use of equipment (ergonomics) such as computer keyboards. They also will train you about safe movement and what you can do to protect your hands from injury at work and at home.

Occupational therapists at Summit Medical Group use a variety of occupational therapy treatments to restore as much function to the hands as possible. These techniques include:

• Exercises
• Custom finger splints to support joints, allowing tendons and muscles to heal
• Techniques to increase tissue extensibility, reduce pain, and decrease swelling
• Sensory education
• Pain management

Do you need occupational therapy?

If you have pain or loss of function in your hands or fingers, you might be a candidate for occupational therapy. The condition may be a result of carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, disease, an accident, or a congenital defect.

You might require preventive treatment, including ergonomic education and movement training. You also may need to regain functioning for returning to work after an injury or surgery.

After a comprehensive evaluation of your hand function, we will develop a goal-oriented occupational therapy treatment plan to give you the best possible results.

We offer day and evening hours.