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

Pain in Back of the Hand

Having pain in the back of your hand can make doing many normal daily tasks unpleasant. For instance, you’ll find that typing is a lot less fun to do. Pain in this area can also make it harder to grasp objects securely. 

Unfortunately, hand pain is common enough that many people will end up experiencing it. One study reveals that nearly 15% of the patients surveyed had pain in their hands. Dealing with pain in the back of your hand can be as easy as going to a physical therapy clinic for help. Physical therapists are trained to treat hand pain and many other musculoskeletal issues, and they offer many techniques that can help reduce your pain. 

Therapists can use these three therapy techniques to treat pain in the back of your hand

Pain in the back of your hand, or posterior hand pain, can be caused by many issues. Some of these issues include arthritis and extensor tendinitis. The first step your physical therapist will take to treat your posterior hand pain is to determine what’s causing it. 

Then, they will construct a therapy plan that’s specifically designed to target the cause of your pain. Such a plan can include therapy methods like: 

  1. Therapeutic exercises — Stretching and strengthening your hands can help reduce posterior hand pain. That’s why your physical therapist will show you how to do specific hand exercises to accomplish these goals. Just how effective can these exercises be? One study of hand arthritis patients shows that therapeutic exercises helped reduce pain by a combined score of 6.36 points on the visual analog scale (VAS).  
  1. Joint mobilization — Treating the joints in an arthritic or painful hand can also be helpful. One technique that physical therapists use to do this is joint mobilization. It involves your therapist using their hands to gently move the joint through its normal range of motion (ROM). As joint ROM improves, pain is typically decreased. A study of joint mobilization in hand arthritis patients found that it reduced pain by nearly 25 VAS points. 
  1. Dry needling — This therapy method involves therapists placing very thin needles into soft tissue in the affected area. The goal of dry needling is to cause a local twitch response. Such a response can help reduce tension in soft tissue and lead to less pain. Research results from one study show that dry needling helped improve VAS hand pain scores by nearly three points on average. 

Ready to get help with the pain in the back of your hand? SSOR can help!

Are you tired of living with pain in the back of your hand? Our physical therapists at SSOR are prepared to help you get effective treatment for your pain. We can do a free screening to pinpoint the source of your hand pain. Additionally, our specialists are adept at building individualized therapy plans designed to decrease pain and help you avoid it in the future. 

You can even get physical therapy from our team without leaving your home. This is possible thanks to the virtual therapy and at-home care services we offer. Also, you won’t need a doctor’s referral to start getting therapy from us. 

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