Conditions & Injuries

Kitchens produce two kinds of hand injury: the cut that happens in a second and the overuse that builds across a season. Which cuts need more than a plaster, and what to change before the overuse ends a career.

Vibration damages nerves and blood vessels directly, and that damage doesn’t fully reverse. The warning signs in the order they appear, what actually reduces the dose, and why the tingling stage matters more than the white-finger stage.

The most predictable occupational injury in manual therapy is the therapist’s own thumb. What the work does, how to replace the thumb before you have to, and the marker that means you already have.

Craft hand pain is a dose problem, and the dose usually spiked over one long weekend. What each craft loads, the changes that let you keep going, and when it is not just overuse.

Gardening hurts hands because it is seasonal: nothing for four months, then eight hours of pruning. What the tasks do, which secateurs change the outcome, and the garden wound that runs on hours.

Bench, squat and deadlift each produce a different hand and arm injury. What to fix in each, what wraps and straps actually do, and the deadlift risk that costs people a year.

Four of the eight stations load the hand and forearm directly. Which ones do what, why grip fails at station six, and how to train endurance rather than maximum.

Golfer’s elbow rebuilds under gradual load, not rest. The loading exercises that work, the isometric option for a flare, and the one symptom that means these exercises are the wrong treatment.

For De Quervain’s the splint and the lifting change do most of the work. Which exercises to do early, which to add at week three, and why the Finkelstein position is a test rather than a stretch.

Stiff, puffy fingers in the morning? How long it lasts, one hand or both, and which row of joints is swollen separate harmless overnight fluid and wear from inflammatory arthritis and the hot joint that needs seeing today.