Hands
With so many daily activities centered around wrist, hand, and finger movement, it’s essential to keep your hand joints, nerves, and bones as healthy and painless as they can be.
Our team at Southwest Orthopedic Group are trained and equipped to deal with any conditions you might experience with your hands and wrists. Offering both non-surgical and surgical treatment options, we promise to return your hands to proper health as efficiently as possible.
Conditions
Arthritis: Commonly known as “wear and tear” arthritis, the common form of arthritis in the hands is osteoarthritis, which leads to the wearing down of cartilage.
Bite Injuries: Hands are common victims of animal bite injuries, which can cause structural damage, skin wounds, infections, and rabies. These need to be cleaned promptly and thoroughly, and in some cases hand surgery will be required.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Also known as CTS, this condition can lead to numbness, pain, and tingling, and is caused by compression of the wrist’s Median Nerve.
Cubital Tunnel Syndrome: Tingling and numbness in the pink and ring finger are symptoms of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, as well as a weakened grip and unsteady finger coordination. This is caused by the ulnar nerve losing function due to pressure.
Flexor Tendon Injuries: ruptures or cuts in the tendon can lead to injury of the flexor tendon, which is the tendon along the palm of your fingers. This leads to pain, swelling, and loss of movement.
Extensor Tendon Injuries: The extensor tendon is opposite the flexor tendon, attached to the fingers and thumbs at the back of the hand.
Hand Dislocations: When bones in the hand or the wrist become forced out of position, this leads to hand dislocations. These are common during car crashes, falling from heights, and while playing sports, and can lead to extreme pain, numbness, and deformity.
Hand Nerve Injury: Pressure, crush injuries, or cuts can lead to hand nerve injuries, which cause a loss of sensation and movement. While hand nerve injuries can heal naturally, extreme cases require surgery.
deQuervain's Tendonitis: This is the inflammation of tendons next to the thumb, along the wrist. Also known as Washer Woman’s Syndrome, this is caused by repetitive hand movements that involve squeezing and pinching.
Dupuytren's Contracture: With an unknown cause, Dupuytren’s disease is the thickening of tissues underneath the palm, forcing fingers to bend forward unnaturally. Patients of this often lose hand function as the disease progresses.
Ganglion Cysts: Bumps on the back of the hand or beside the wrist are known as Ganglion Cysts, and while they are not cancerous, they can lead to mild discomfort.
Rheumatoid Arthritis: A chronic inflammatory disease, this hand disease causes inflammation and stiffness to the hand joints, leading to loss of function and deformity of the hand.
Finger Conditions
Swan Neck: This deformity occurs when the middle joint of the finger is bent back too far, causing hyperextended injury to it and giving it a crooked appearance.
Boutonniere: This condition forces a finger’s middle joint to bend inward and the tip joint to bend outward. This can be caused by a tendon that has been cut or weakened along the back of the thumb or finger.
Trigger Finger/Thumb: These common conditions cause stiffness, pain, and most notably, a sensation of locking when an individual tries to straighten or bend their fingers or thumb. While this is most common in the ring finger and thumb, this condition can be experienced in all fingers.
Treatments
Orthopedic Trauma Treatment: For severe injuries to parts of the hands and wrists, in which immediate medical attention is required.
Joint Replacement: The base joint of the thumb is the hand’s most mobile joint, but this range of movement can lead to overuse and joint deterioration, causing arthritis and other conditions. Joint replacement or joint reconstructive surgery (arthroplasty) can be done in extreme cases of thumb joint deterioration.
Wrist Fracture Surgery: For fractures that fail to heal, or when bones are broken too unnaturally that they can’t align with the help of a cast, wrist fracture surgery is required.
Endoscopic Carpal Tunnel Surgery: This surgery involves an endoscope positioned in a small incision. The endoscope (a small tube with a light and camera) guides surgeons as they place a cannula along the Median Nerve. This type of surgery allows patients to heal quicker with less discomfort as it spares more palm tissue than other surgical options.
Open Release Carpal Tunnel Surgery: The Open Release surgical alternative is quicker, taking about 15 minutes. The surgeon cuts along the palm and accesses the Transverse Carpal Ligament directly.
Microvascular and Peripheral Nerve Surgery: Our surgeons are well trained in microvascular and peripheral nerve surgery, and are experienced with a range of surgical techniques for the wrist and hand, free flap tissue transfers, peripheral nerve surgery, and brachial plexus reconstruction.
Hand Nerve Repair: For cases of hand nerve injury that fail to heal on their own, hand nerve repair can involve several different types of surgery, depending on the gap size between the cut nerve endings.
Complex Hand Reconstruction: For the most extreme cases where the functionality of the hand has been completely lost or the hand has become severely deformed, a complex hand reconstruction is heavily suggested.
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