What to do about hand dysfunction after a stroke

  When the assessment of hand spasticity shows an increase in muscle tone or a significant increase in muscle tone, the targeted home treatment is to use some warm therapy, such as: hot compress, after the hot compress, you can use your healthy side of the hand to passively move the flexion and extension of each joint of the affected hand, as far as possible to reach the full range of joint mobility threshold. If the assessment shows a severe increase in muscle tone, targeted home treatment, in addition to some warmth therapy, requires that the flexed fingers be passively immobilized in the extended position for at least 2 hours at rest, using the following methods of immobilization: 1.  2. Wrapping the fingers with cardboard.  When the spasticity assessment of the hand shows that the muscle tone is severely increased to the point of finger stiffness, special treatment such as ultrasound, shock wave, or joint release techniques should be performed in the hospital.  When the motor function of the hand is assessed to be soft and weak, the hand, including the fingers, is weak and unable to actively extend and flex the fingers, electrical stimulation can be used at this time.  2. When the motor function assessment of the hand has entered the micro-motor phase, a little active finger flexion micro-motion can occur in this phase, but not extension. Therefore, the focus of functional promotion during this period is not only to continue to strengthen the active flexion movement, but also to stimulate the extension muscles of the fingers on the back of the hand, using the good hand on the healthy side to pat the back of the affected hand and the extension side of the affected forearm, and using low-frequency electrical stimulation to stimulate the extension muscles of the affected arm to induce extension movements. In addition, bilateral joint extension exertion can be used to induce the extension muscle groups on the affected side.  3. When the motor function assessment of the hand has entered the overall grip phase, the hand can appear to have an overall hooked grip but cannot be relaxed; there is no finger extension action. During this period, special emphasis should be placed on strengthening and stimulating the dorsal finger extension muscles of the hand, and the exercises described in 2 can be continued.  4, when the hand motor function assessment has entered the pre-functional recovery: the hand began to appear lateral pinching action, can have a slight thumb release action; finger semi-random weak straightening action (small angle micro-motion) This period although there is a finger weak extension micro-motion, but can not carry out functional activities. For example, a rag can be used for table wiping training, i.e., a rag is placed on top of the rag by the patient, and then the good hand is pressed against the affected hand, and the two hands are linked for table wiping practice, which can strengthen the stretching action of the hand and also strengthen the proprioception of the hand, which is very important.  5, when the hand motor function assessment has entered the functional recovery period: you can perform the overall hand grasp, for example, there is a cylindrical or ball-shaped grasp, although the movement performance is clumsy, and the hand function is limited; but there is a random finger overall straightening. This period should be carried out movement training such as, single finger extension exercises, you can use a rubber band, resistance to stretching exercises. An electronic piano can also be used to practice playing simple children’s songs, on the one hand, entertainment, on the other hand, is also excellent hand function training.