help for weak wrist extendors?

Forum for parents of injured who are seeking information from other parents or people living with the injury. All welcome
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Karen w
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:56 am

help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by Karen w »

Hello, My daughter Grace is 2 years old and has had primary and mod quad surgeries. she still has some weakness in her wrist extendors. Is there some excercises or therapy activities that we can do to improve this weakness? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
Karen w
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:56 am

Re: help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by Karen w »

Just bringing this topic back to the front. Any help would be appreciated
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 19873
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:59 pm

Re: help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by admin »

We have been using TES and NMES to help my daughter's wrist extensors. It does seem to be helping. Her doctor said that when she is older and can be an active participant in therapy that she may need a tendon transfer to help being she has a hard time opening her hand fully. Hope this helps.
njbirk
Posts: 1806
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2001 10:09 pm

Re: help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by njbirk »

Karen,

I always get extension and flexion mixed up. One is lifting up the hand at the wrist and the other is holding the hand down. Which is it in this case? Then maybe we can all give some suggestions.

I presume she can extend it passively, just not actively?

Nancy
Karen w
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:56 am

Re: help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by Karen w »

Hi, Grace can actively both flex her hand up at the wrist and also extend her hand down at the wrist, but this is somewhat weaker. I am not sure either what the Dr's mean by wrist extensors. From vieweing our video, the TCH dr's just noted that she seemed to have weak wrist extensors and that is why I posted this question. Does that make sense? The only thing we notice at home is that she still holds her wrist down in the "waiter's tip" position sometimes and when she is crawling she holds her wrist in almost a backward position with her thumb bent in under her hand.
katep
Posts: 1240
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:20 pm

Re: help for weak wrist extendors?

Post by katep »

Karen,

I think you have flexion and extension of the wrist mixed up? If the hand is out, palm down, flexion is moving the wrist down, extension is raising the wrist. This site has very good animations to help understand all the directions of movements:

http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Wrist.html

Sorry I don't have any suggestions for strengthening the wrist extensors.

Kate
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