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Wrist physiotherapy London

Name: Nell Mead
Address: Longcroft House 2-8 Victoria Ave, London, EC2M 4NS
Telephone: 0207 175 0150

If you’re looking for wrist physiotherapy, and need a therapist who is thorough and thinks outside the traditional physiotherapy box, then look no further!

Get in contact

Just call my London team on
0207 175 0150 or use the form below and let me help you get better.

Just call my London team on 0207 175 0150 or use the form here.

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Wrist physio

According to a 2019 report in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 10% of people who are active or play sports suffer with wrist pain, a high number considering how debilitating wrist injuries can be. Just think about how many daily tasks would be affected if your wrists were immobilised!

But in my experience, relatively few cases of wrist pain actually start at the wrist.

More commonly, we undertake tasks or activities that our whole bodies don’t have capacity for – and our poor wrists end up trying (and failing) to compensate for our lack of strength, flexibility or coordination elsewhere. For example – if you try to learn to do a handstand, but your shoulders aren’t flexible enough, then your wrists will have to compensate otherwise you won’t be able to get your feet over your head. Or if you want to hit a forehand, but your ribcage is too stiff to rotate for a backswing, then a common place to compensate (and therefore overload) is the wrist.

What to expect from a wrist physio assessment

The first thing to expect is that we’ll be having a long chat! I need to understand exactly when and where your wrist hurts – and what you’re hoping to be able to do with it! For example, are we aiming to get you back to being able to carry a bag of shopping; or do you want to be able to play full-contact rugby or serve a tennis ball at 100mph?

Next, we’ll look at your wrist and everything that may be affecting its ability to do the job you want it to do. We need to understand whether your wrist pain is due an issue within the wrist area, or whether it’s attempting to compensate for a dysfunction elsewhere in your body.

Working this out may involve imaging such as X-ray or MRI; and we may need to talk to other specialists such as an orthopaedic hand and wrist surgeon, a radiologist, a neurologist, a sports doctor or a rheumatologist.

Wrist treatment London

Physiotherapy for wrist pain will focus on retraining the muscles and movement patterns that control whichever area is at fault for the wrist pain, whether that’s the wrist itself or something higher up the chain – the neck, shoulder and ribcage are common culprits, as stiffness or poor control in these areas will often affect the way in which you position and load your wrist.

However, if we discover that there is structural damage to the bones, cartilage or ligaments, then we may also need to involve some of the other professionals.

Teamwork is key to success in this situation if you’re to make the best possible recovery – but don’t forget that the most important member of the team is you!

Wrist physio assessments are 90 minutes

Follow-up sessions if required are usually an hour – it’s important to me to be very thorough when it comes to wrist physiotherapy, as I want to be the last wrist physiotherapist you need.