Day to day activities as therapeutic modalities to rehabilitate injured hands

Provision of six weeks supervised hand therapy, followed by four weeks of home-based hand therapy. The participants are provided with 30 minutes of therapeutic exercises, and 30 minutes of occupation based intervention in one therapy session, twice a week during the six weeks of supervised hand therapy. In addition, all participants are provided with paraffin bath treatment to prepare the injured hands for active mobilisation. The therapeutic exercises used are similar to the control group. Occupation based intervention consists of three selected occupational tasks; picking up small everyday objects, washing/wiping dishes and typing on a keyboard. The occupational tasks were chosen based on the therapeutic benefits that were described by Malaysian occupational therapists in an unpublished study by the investigator. All the therapy sessions are administered by an occupational therapist. The intervention is then followed by four weeks of home-based hand therapy, two hours per week for four weeks. The participants are asked to incorporate these tasks into their occupations for daily living. For instance, they are asked to wash/wipe dishes after a meal, type any tasks using the keyboard (homework/office work/ replying to emails/chatting) and pick up everyday small objects that related to their day to day activities. All participants are provided with a checklist diary to remind them to complete the program.