Fine Motor Skill Exercises

While typing and writing more often seemed to help my right hand, my left is now as bad as my right was. Worse possibly, since I have officially started dropping things. 😦 So I asked Kelly, my sister-in-law/OT, if she could give me some exercises. She gave me a putty, called theraputty (I have the red one), and a resistance band.

My exercises:

1. On a flat service roll the putty into a long cylinder going from the edge of your palm to the tip of your fingers. Then, once you have a nice fat cylinder, pinch it together with your thumb and then each figure individually. Repeat a couple of times using both hands.
2. Also once rolled, form the putty into a tight ring. Just big enough to squeeze the tips of 5 fingers through. Then using those fingers spread the putty into a larger ring. So far when I do this one my ring finger does absolutely no work. 😦
3. Take the ball of putty and using only your fingers pull apart, smush back together, and pull apart.
4. Wrap the resistance band around one hand, resting that arm on a table so that only your hand and wrist hang over the side. Then with your other hand hold the band down so that there is no slack. Then using only your wrist lift your hand. Repeat in the opposite direction and in the opposite hand. She said that it is more important to hold the resistance for a longer time than it is to do more reps.

These sound really easy to do, but my hands are exhausted afterwards. These are supposed to strengthen the muscles in your hand and wrist, which will not stop the problem, but hopefully make it easier to deal with.