I’m a hand occupational therapist. I spent nineteen years treating hands, from 2007 onwards.
Fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, elbows. That was the entire scope, and I never worked outside it since.
I now lead the clinical team at Phoenix Rehab Group in Singapore rather than carrying my own caseload. Which is part of why this site exists: the pattern from those years is worth more written down than it is sitting in my head.
This page exists so you can check who wrote what you’re reading. On a health site that matters more than it does anywhere else.
Credentials
- Diploma in Occupational Therapy, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore (2005)
- BHSc in Occupational Therapy, University of Sydney, Australia
- Registered with the Allied Health Professions Council, Singapore
- Principal Hand Occupational Therapist, Phoenix Rehab Group
Career route: general medicine and rehab, then orthopedic and musculoskeletal inpatient occupational therapy at Changi General Hospital, then outpatient hand therapy, then private practice, where I could give hand injuries the time they actually need.
Full professional profile: phoenixrehabgroup.com/nigel-chua.
What I treated
- Post-surgical recovery — tendon repairs, fracture fixation, nerve decompressions, joint reconstructions. The months after the operation, which is the part nobody prepares people for.
- Fractures and dislocations — distal radius, scaphoid, metacarpals, phalanges, and the stiffness that follows them.
- Nerve compressions — carpal tunnel, cubital tunnel, Guyon’s canal, radial and pronator syndromes.
- Tendon problems — trigger finger, De Quervain’s, tennis and golfer’s elbow, and the overuse conditions that sit under those names.
- Arthritis — osteoarthritis of the thumb base and finger joints, inflammatory arthritis, joint protection and hand function.
- Sports injuries — climbing pulley injuries, skier’s thumb, hamate fractures, TFCC tears, and the load problems behind them.
- Work-related hand and arm pain — the desk, the tool, the handle, the hours. Usually the actual cause, and usually the last thing anyone changes.
Broadly: hard tissue, soft tissue, and stiffness. Bone. Tendon, ligament, cartilage, muscle. And the joints that seize up after an injury or an infection, which is where most of the long-term damage actually gets done.
What hand therapy actually involves
Most people arrive expecting exercises. Exercises are maybe a fifth of it.
Assessment first: palpating, measuring joint range in degrees, testing grip and pinch against the other side, working out which structure is actually producing the symptom rather than which one hurts loudest.
Then, depending on what’s found: custom splints moulded from thermoplastic to one specific hand, swelling and scar management, graded loading, nerve and tendon gliding, joint protection strategies, and rebuilding the way you use the hand for the work you actually do.
And a lot of explaining. A patient who understands what their tissue is doing and how long it takes stops panicking at week four, and stops doing the thing that keeps reinjuring it.
What this site does not do
Worth stating plainly, because the boundaries are the useful part.
- Hand therapists don’t prescribe medication.
- We don’t operate, and we don’t decide whether you need surgery. That’s your surgeon’s call.
- We don’t order or report imaging. We read the report and rehabilitate what it shows.
- Nothing here covers necks, shoulders, backs, hips or knees. Plenty of good people do.
- And I don’t diagnose anyone through a screen, including you, including now.
When an article here says get this assessed, it means by someone who can put hands on your hand. That is not a disclaimer. It’s the single most important limitation of everything on this site.
Why this site is separate from my clinic
Phoenix Rehab sees patients in Singapore. Most people reading this don’t live here, and it would be no use to them if this site were an advertisement for a room they can’t get to.
So there’s no booking form here, no clinic address, no consultation offer. Twenty-one years of pattern goes into the writing instead, and you take it to whoever examines you locally.
How I think about timing, and why it decides most outcomes, is on the Closing Window Method page. Conditions are indexed here.