Hand Arthritis Stretches & Exercises – Ask Doctor Jo

Hand arthritis is pretty common, and it can be very debilitating. Since the joints in the hand are small, you don’t have to do much to relieve the pain, you just have to keep them moving. These stretches and exercises should help your hand arthritis feel better. See Doctor Jo’s blog post about this at:

You can set your arm on a table or flat surface to relax it, or if you don’t have anything available, you can prop your elbow up on your knee or thigh.

Start off with a fist and warm up your wrist. With your palm side facing down, move your fist up and down at the wrist for flexion and extension. Now move it side to side in a radial and ulnar deviation movement. Ten in each direction should be fine since this is just to warm up the muscles.

Next, you will keep your fingers straight, and take your thumb and touch each finger in the middle of your hand, and then spread them all back apart. You can do three times back and forth.

Now bend your fingers at the joint closest to your wrist, still keeping the fingers as straight as you can. Bend down and back up gliding the tendons up and down. Now move to the next joint down the fingers. This time open your fingers, and then curl the top part of your fingers down for the stretch. Finally, go to the last joint farthest down the finger. You might have to hold onto the near part of your finger so just the last joint moves. Just start off with ten of each of these with a continuous movement.

For the last stretch, start with all your fingers close together, and then spread them out as far as you can, just like you are fanning them out. You don’t have to do a lot of these exercises since these are small joints. 2-3 minutes, 2-3 times a day should be plenty.

Related Videos:

Hand & Wrist Stretches for Arthritis Pain Relief:

De Quervain’s Syndrome Stretches, aka Blackberry Thumb:

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Doctor Jo is a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

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Hand Arthritis Stretches & Exercises:

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