3 Household Objects for 9 different Hand Therapy Activities

Do you struggle to develop new treatment ideas or even ideas for your virtual hand therapy visits?  Thinking of unique ways to use objects your clients have in their homes can be half the battle. This blog post presents 3 different ways to use 3 everyday items. 


Item number 1: A tennis ball (hand therapy ball).

Tracing the white lines

Shift the tennis ball (or any other therapy ball for hand) with the fingertips while tracing the line of the ball with the tip of the thumb.  Then repeat in reverse. This is a great option for our CMC osteoarthritis and a good fit for anyone needing to work on that thumb mobility.

hand therapy ball


Balancing on a racket

Balancing a tennis ball on a racket addresses wrist stability and mobility, and upper extremity strengthening and coordination.  If your client doesn’t have a racket handy, they could even use a small frying pan.  Have your client ‘write their name’ with the pattern of the therapy hand ball or even try spelling out the ABCs. 

Grip strengthening
This is typically used for pediatrics but can be fun for adults too. Cut a slit into one of the tennis balls and give it to your client. Otherwise, see if a loved one can help them cut a slit.  Have your client squeeze the ball with their affected hand to open the mouth (slit) of the tennis ball.  Using their other hand, have them place pom-poms, coins, or beads into the therapy ball for hands.  

Item number 2: A bag of coins

Translate coins into a piggy bank
This activity emphasizes prehension, functional grasp patterns, isometric IP flexion, in-hand manipulation, opposition, palm to finger translation, and more!  No piggy bank = no problem. Cut a hole in the top of an old peanut butter jar or even cut slits into a piece of paper for DIY alternatives. 

hand therapy ball

Hide coins in rice. 

Hide coins in a Tupperware container of rice, place a towel on top of the container, and challenge your client to place the affected hand in and search for the coins. This activity will challenge tactile discrimination skills, desensitize digits, hand strength and mobility, and functional grasp. 


Stacking

Stacking coins is an easy activity that targets an individual’s dexterity, as it requires prehension, opposition, and mobility. To grade this activity, prompt your client to hold multiple coins in the palm of their hand and then stack a single coin, one at a time; this additional challenge will address in-hand manipulation and palm-to-finger translation skills!

hand therapy ball

Item number 3: Scraps of Paper

Paper ‘Crumpling’

Using appropriately sized pieces of paper, have your client ‘crumple’ 5 pieces with their involved hand, making them into paper balls. This is for improving in-hand manipulation skill and to improve digital range of motion.

hand therapy ball

‘Flicking’ 

Practice ‘flicking’ the paper balls (see above); this will encourage isolated digit flexion and extension.

Throwing small paper balls 

Practice throwing small balls into a small container.  This will encourage range of motion in dart throwers plane and encourage grasp and release in a tenodesis fashion—also many other great benefits for eye-hand coordination and proprioception

2 Comments

  1. Rosenda rivera on June 21, 2021 at 5:19 pm

    simple exercises that go far.

  2. April Hedrick on February 12, 2022 at 2:05 pm

    Awesome, thank you for sharing

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply






More To Read

K-tape and Cerebral Palsy

February 29, 2020

Allah-Rastii, Z., Shamsoddini, A., Dalvand, H. and Labaf, S. (2017). The effect of kinesio taping on handgrip and active range of motion of hand in children with cerebral palsy. Iranian Journal of Child Neurology, 11(4), 43-51.   The Skinny: Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive motor impairment caused by injury to the developing brain that can…

Read More

Use of Compression Gloves for Distal Radius Fractures

March 22, 2020

Use of Compression Gloves for Distal Radius Fractures Miller-Shahabar, I., Schreuer, N., Katsevman, H., Bernfeld, B., Cons, A., Raisman, Y., & Milman, U. (2018). Efficacy of compression gloves in the rehabilitation of distal radius fractures: Randomized controlled study. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 97(12), 904–910. By Brittany Carrie The Skinny Distal radius fractures are a…

Read More

Mechanism of Interneural Edema in Carpal and Cubital Tunnel

May 17, 2020

Mechanism of Interneural Edema Over the last few weeks I have been learning about ultrasonic imaging and carpal tunnel syndrome.  When reviewing carpal tunnel syndrome, I learned that intraneural edema is a common sign of compression injuries such as carpal tunnel and cubital tunnel.  There are numerous causes of carpal tunnel syndrome, and every scenario…

Read More
Envelope_1

Sign-up to Get Updates Straight to Your Inbox!

Sign up with us and we will send you regular blog posts on everything hand therapy, notices every time we upload new videos and tutorials, along with handout, protocols, and other useful information.