Hand Therapist Nigel Chua 
Expect about 12 weeks before a repaired flexor tendon handles real gripping, and 3 to 6 months to near-full use. The splint stays on full-time for about 6 weeks, and the repair is weakest around week 3, exactly when the hand starts feeling fine.
Boutonnière deformity is a torn central slip at the middle knuckle. Caught early, it’s a splint holding the middle joint straight full time for about 6 weeks, plus fingertip exercises, with most people back to normal use by around 3 months.
After a simple elbow dislocation, most people move the elbow within a week, return to light use around 6 weeks and near full function by 3 months. The real risk is stiffness: weeks in a sling cost range you don’t get back.
CRPS is pain that escalates after a hand or wrist injury instead of settling, with swelling, color and temperature changes and fast-building stiffness. It’s real, most people improve over months, and the hand has to keep moving while it hurts.
Yes, a stiff hand after a cast or surgery can usually be fixed, and most of the gain comes in the first 3 months. Here’s the timeline, the two self-tests, the exercises with reps, and why time at end range beats pulling harder.
About 3 months for everyday life, 6 to 12 months for full strength. A hand therapist’s week-by-week trapeziectomy recovery: splint, pain, driving, work, and why pinch feels weaker at month 3.
Carpal tunnel surgery recovery takes 3 to 6 months for grip strength and scar comfort, while night tingling usually stops within days. Pillar pain, a sensitive scar and a weak grip at week 4 are all normal; here’s the week-by-week.
A sprained or dislocated middle finger joint usually needs 3 to 6 weeks of buddy taping, with most movement back by 6 weeks. The swelling takes 6 to 12 months. What ruins these fingers isn’t the injury, it’s resting them still.
Jersey finger is the deep flexor tendon torn off the bone at your fingertip, so the tip won’t bend on its own. It needs surgery, ideally within 7 to 10 days. The finger still working is why people wait, and why they lose the repair.
Dupuytren’s contracture is a thickening under the palm skin that slowly pulls a finger into a bend. You don’t treat the lump; you treat the bend, when the hand fails the table-top test, the knuckle reaches about 30 degrees, or the middle joint starts to bend.