Protecting our joints is for everyone!
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It's surprising how many different outcomes people are experiencing in the time of COVID. As a hand therapist, I see people who are working their normal duties but at a higher rate, I see people working from home with non-ergonomic setups that hurt them. I also see the other extreme, which is people not working at all, but "laboring" more than usual on the tasks they love, or projects at home, thereby resulting in a new injury, or aggravating an old one. Sound like you?... Here's some advice. 1) Try emulating your usual work situation at home. If you usually have a sit to stand desk, consider purchasing a desktop version, or setting up side-by-side work surfaces to allow you to change positions easily (I did this by putting a wireless solar keyboard on my printer for standing, and my laptop on a storage cube to bring the monitor to eye level (worked quite well). Then use the usual desktop for your seated version. 2) If you are like some of my clients who are doing the same work, without any breaks, and more intensively because there's no travel involved to break up their time, you will need to build in those breaks. Set a timer. Aim for a short break (1-2mins) every 30 mins, and a longer break (2-5mins) every hour. There are plenty examples of software online that will prompt you to take breaks, offer you a suggestion, like "time to drink some water", or "time to stretch those forearms"...) Try searching the internet for the top 10, free, RSI prevention software downloads. 3) Consider rotating through a variety of computer inputs to vary what muscles and positions you work from. Take a look a Joystick mouse, Evoluent mouse, a split keyboard such as GoldTouch, a roller bar mouse (by Contour), or a keyboard change to Kinesis. You may also want to consider dictation software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking. 4) As a final recommendation, throw out the idea that knees, hips and elbows need to be at 90 degree angles. Open, or more loose packed joints and muscles are happier. Try lowering your keyboard or raising your chair. Aim to have your keyboard flat or even sloped slightly away from you (higher toward your elbows and lower toward fingertips). If all of the above help but don't make enough difference, consider making an appointment for an evaluation. Telehealth is great for ergonomic evaluations - it gives us a very good opportunity to actually see YOU in YOUR space :)) Take care of you! Stay well! Tracey~
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Oh Rona, oh Rona, how we despise thee..... I could go on, it sounds like a song, but as much as I'd like, I probably couldn't go long, I'd rather say so loooong,.....Rona! OK, that's as poetic as I can be today. Let's just say, we are all in this together, all feeling the pressure, all concerned about our ongoing health and the health of our loved ones. That said, I hinted last time at ways that we can support ourselves and our overall well-being even more than we usually do without investing much more than 5-10 minutes and no $$ per day. What is that? you may ask. Well, let's talk about our central nervous system. Breathing is this crazy thing we do automatically, but we can also do under our own volition (ever held your breath? ever breathed faster or slower because you wanted to? We all do this, but what we forget about breathing is that it is our special way of getting a message backward from our diaphragm (that muscly dome that separates the bottom of our lungs from our gut) up to our brain. Alright, who's touched piano keys before?? We can all touch and even play the keys, but we don't all make beautiful music, right? Making music takes practice. That's how deep breathing works - we don't get a very solid relaxation message back to our brains unless we practice using those neural pathways. At first it can take 10 - 20 breaths to send any relaxation at all. Just like the piano, if you set aside 5-10 minutes daily, and truly focus on the breathing, you, too, can make beautiful music while your brain says,"Ahhhhhhh, I know what s/he's doing, we've been here before, this is relax time". This practice results in your blood pressure lowering, your stress level lowering, your coping skills and tolerance for stress increasing (and more!), and with practice, this can happen as quickly as with the first breath. Sounds worth the practice, yes? I'm going to recommend a couple of free apps (you can also do a little google research to find others) that can help you relax and enjoy this time while you let your nervous system practice. Try Simply Being - this is a free app that directs you to breathe while also helping you lay the groundwork for beginner meditation. You can control the volume of the music/sounds separately from the voice , and you can choose how long each should continue. The other I'll recommend is iBreathe. Did I mention these are both free? iBreathe teaches you to control inhalation and exhalation, to really hone your focus and breath skills. Feel free to explore, but remember the importance of ongoing training. The nervous system hardware is already there. We are hard-wired like a piano, but what we usually lack is the practice. So set aside 5 minutes after waking, or just before bed, and really just breathe. Contact me below if you need more support for your practice or in building this routine. Sending love!
Tracey~ Dear hand therapy clients,
These are some challenging times we are living in, for sure. Thank you so much for your patience in greeting us at the door, washing hands, answering our COVID screening , and having your temperature taken. These steps are meant to keep all of us safe, including you. These are essential self care moments, and the little things that can make a very big difference down the road. On the topic of self care, as you know, I am a great promoter of balancing our lifestyles so there's a good amount of self care, productivity, and leisure in all our lives. In times of stress and/or illness, we often lose our engagement in leisure, and sometimes our self care suffers as well. At this time, many of us are also facing loss of work, loss of routine, additional household chores, and a generally heightened sense of anxiety. This makes it all the more important that you balance your life to include extra self care time, and make sure you get to do something fun every day. That doesn't have to be complicated - it could be a walk, playing a game of cards with a family member, drawing a picture, or watching your favorite show at the end of the day. Whatever you decide to do, take a special moment to acknowledge it. Say to yourself, "...aaahhhhhh, this I do for me", or thank your family members for joining you in a board game, or whatever it is you choose for your leisure time. At the end of the day, we are all just striving to stay in balance. I hope this is a helpful reminder. Next time we'll talk about some apps that can help you with deep breathing and relaxation. Stay well!! Your hand therapist, Tracey~ No hand therapist ever wants to tell you to not do what you love. What we want to do is help you modify what you do, how you do it, and make it as safe as possible. Here's a little 12 slide slideshow that I put together last spring for the Petaluma Garden Club. Each slide introduces a joint protection principle followed by a slide or 2 to clarify the application of the principle to your gardening life. Enjoy! and happy gardening!! (click on link below)...
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NItWJjPDv4HvVqAKO-WgJlHNwoaroyPmmG_t2Clekzg/pub?start=true&loop=true&delayms=5000
So hopefully you can stand me putting up a couple of posts to celebrate this week. Here goes! Click on the link or copy and paste for hand protection tips :)
http://blog.pennpartners.org/hand-therapy-awareness-and-injury-prevention-week/ Well, I know this is coming on the heels of Occupational Therapy Month, which POST graciously allows me to celebrate loud and proud, but guess what?! It is Hand Therapy Week all week from June 1st to the 7th.
My first order of business is to thank P.O.S.T. for their unwavering support of all things OT and particularly Hand Therapy. I'd like to thank our fabulous support staff, in particular Christina, Cindy, Nataly & Melissa who keep us running, keep us scheduled, and keep the whole clinic on track - always! Thank you, Ladies! Without you we'd be in BIG trouble! The second thing I need to do is acknowledge my amazing professional colleagues. There are a few, and they are all amazing, so I will keep it brief. If you need any of their services, I will be the first to recommend them: Mitch - our fearless leader and fabulous PT Justin & Lucie - more amazing PTs Lizanne - our awesome pelvic floor guru, also a PT Scott - our genius chiropractor Frank - the wizard of acupuncture Karen - the exercise Queen, and long time PTA Mara - relaxation goddess, and massage therapist Finally, I want to acknowledge our wonderful Wellness instructors - please take advantage of their skill and expertise in yoga, meditation, dance, and general wellness classes. Our finger joints are the tiniest joints in our whole bodies. That means they are potentially the most vulnerable as well. Something I see in my clients all the time, that I regularly advise them to change, is how they open jars. Opening jars is an all out war against finger joints - an exercise in joint-shearing and tearing. Opening jars is NOT one of those activities that is high on most peoples' to-do lists. So why do we insist on opening jars the "he-man"/grunt and groan way? "I like to make sure I can still do it" is the most common answer I get. My response is..."you never should have done it that way in the first place".
So, you may be asking..."how AM I supposed to open a jar"? With the right tool, or sometimes a couple of tools for the job. First, you need to break the seal. There are many ways to do this. I like to turn the jar upside down and tap the corner of the lid on a padded counter (folded towel on countertop). Once I hear that tell-tale Phssfft!!! I know I have broken the seal. The next tool is up to you, but try to take advantage of larger joints, long bones, and leverage. A couple of suggestions: choose a V-tooth opener that mounts under your cupboards. Out of sight, no clutter, but definitely handy. Or choose a rubber handled strap-wrench. Yup, you heard me right! Just like the strap-wrench in the garage for removing oil filters, but smaller and easier to store in a utility drawer in the kitchen. There you have it! Check out our Equipment Store link on the "Right Tool for the Job" page to see these top choices :) |
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