Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your unscripted podcast host. I'm here with Jason Steer. Why don't you give yourself a long introduction focusing on your experience or expertise that makes you an expert in your field.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Thanks for having me on, Jeremy. My expertise really kind of stems from an original background in business management in my, my adult life. Anyways.
My undergraduate degree was in business management and operations. So I did operations for a larger company for about 10 years. And then when I met my wife Jen, she's an occupational therapist, I learned about the health and medical industry through her and became really intrigued with how occupational therapy differed from physical therapy and also how much they intertwined, especially from a mental health standpoint. And so after learning about it from her, and her focus was stroke rehab or cva, cerebral vascular accident, basically brain injuries. And so she convinced me I went back to school for a master's degree in occupational therapy and that's how I began my trek down the healthcare world. Ironically, I had my own hand injury about 15 years ago. I had a saw get stuck in my arm and so I had to have major reconstruction done. Had a great result. I've got full motion here, so I've been through the ringer. They repaired tendons, nerves, arteries, the full shebang. So it was quite the wild ride. But I don't know that that directly led to my interest, but I'm sure because it was 15 years before then that led me down, down that path, but got the degree and went right into the workforce really focused on stroke rehab. And part of that my, my focus was on upper extremity health after strokes and managing spasticity and that overall dysfunction in tone and all that's entailed there, it led me to create a wheelchair based application for upper extremity rehab following a stroke.
And part of that journey, my field work or resident type rotations were all with hand therapists, one at the va, one at a physical therapy entity.
And I really enjoyed that. So I just got sucked further and further down the hand therapy path and worked my way towards becoming a certified hand therapist and also went on and got more credentialing for wound care certification and ergonomics. I guess I just have the type that, I guess I'm just the type that has to continue proving my worth. That might be a sign of imposter syndrome, who knows?
But yeah, started with operations and now I'm in healthcare. That's, I guess a general introduction of who I am.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's great.
I think a lot of people don't you know, we use these things so often that the miracle of them, the complexity of your hands, kind of gets occluded. You know, we're holding our phones and taking advantage of it. And I know myself, I went through a phase when I was at, you know, my corporate desk slave period, where their terrible, shortened desks led to a serious, almost carpal tunnel. My friend, he had to get full braces on his arms for six months and went through a lot. I was able to just, you know, do some basic, you know, bicycle turns, and they had to install full ergonomic desks set up under desk keyboard setups for everybody because everybody was getting carpal tunnel syndromes at the same time. So I know there's.
There's a lot that people don't know about hands. What is it that you've been learning through your medical journey, through therapy that you wish that people knew?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: I wish people were better exposed to and understood the power of movement.
We incorporate a lot of very common postures and movement patterns into our daily life.
We spend, for example, we spend all day long. We grip everything, so we're constantly grabbing and pinching. And then when we're ready to let go of that item or task, we just let go. We relax. We're never forcefully open. And so that's a great example of how there's never this balance in training. So, for example, looking at just motion itself, you have this imbalance of overly strong flexors, and you've got stretched out extensors there, so you've got that imbalance there. And that would contribute into that ergonomic factor you mentioned for carpal tunnel syndrome. Right. And so if we're constantly at desk, for example, where we've got that forward posture, internally rotated shoulders, everything is kind of hunched over, and then our elbows are adducted to our side, palms down, we're in that posture. So the power of movement and the same motion is lotion. Right.
We need to be able to take those frequent breaks. And if we can't spend quality time stretching what's tight and strengthening what's weak.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: That's true. I'm taking. I'm taking karate from Smash martial artist here in Cookville.
But a lot of the focus gets. My wife does his exercise course too. Like, she has. She's like, came home and was like, okay, Jeremy, you need to stand against the wall because you're constantly pulling your shoulders forward when you're sitting and you are. Are bulking up those muscles. You need to bulk up. The muscles that pull Pull it back. And I think that's kind of the must, like the, the ignorance of what's going on underneath the skin in what you're talking about. You know, it's like when you are over flexing your hands all the time, you're not working out those muscles on the, you know, like you got buff biceps, but not on the opposite side, side. Not pulling it back with equal, equal strength.
I think that that type of, like, X ray into our hands, like into our biologies, is something we really need to bring to the surface. Especially, you know, if something's going wrong.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: You're.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: You've got a carpal tunnel, experiencing arthritis, you've had a stroke. Then it becomes more clear, oh, hey, something's wrong. Now I need to understand it.
So what are the practical therapies? What are the medical devices that have been developed that you use in your practice or that you use in your consulting or that your wife has started to adopt in her processes as a hand therapist that you've seen help make a difference?
[00:06:58] Speaker B: That's a loaded question. So. And there's a lot to it.
I want to circle back and talk about a little bit about that stretch you had mentioned from your wife talked about leaning against the wall and bringing their shoulders back. Now, that's a great way. You might call those wall angels or trying to work on glenohumeral joint external rotation and trying to get the scapula moving.
That's a great one. So trying to really strengthen that posterior chain. But in terms of general devices and models, I really think about how do we counteract all those, I guess, temptations to be at a desk in front of our phone. So in terms of devices, there's a lot out there.
People can get sucked into the next best, greatest thing. And things like electrical stimulation and soft tissue manipulation and those tools. And they all have a role, they're all very supplemental, but nothing really is a substitute for natural functional motion and stretching.
We can find ways to naturally strengthen our body. So, for example, as an occupational therapist, we focus on incorporating function and tasks into that therapy. And so, for example, if someone has a hand injury, and let's say they're maybe really into quilting or doing puzzles, we could do those things either using adaptive equipment or compensatory strategies or just doing those. Those tasks with varying levels of difficulty to increase endurance or to increase fine motor dexterity. So there's, there's a lot that can be done, really going back to those principles of stretch, strengthen, and really education.
That's one of my, I guess one of my focuses with, with Metaflex is trying to provide just general knowledge and exposure to, you know, simple ideas that can have a big impact.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Why don't you expand a little bit for the people listening who might not be familiar with what exactly Metaflex is and what role it might play. I know you probably have multiple positions, so why don't you give us a taste of what you're working on with different companies like Metaflex.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Sure, yeah.
I am a chief clinical officer for Mediflex.
Taya Phillips, she's a CEO. She had found out about me through my affiliation with Vanderbilt University Medical Center. I work with that industry, that, that company is a occupational hand therapist. So I get, I get to see a lot of really interesting and, and great technologies and surgical advances, and I'm supported by a great team there. But with Mediflex, she developed this, okay, great segue. She took a very simple idea and found a way to tie it into healthcare. You know, we talked about people grip all day long, and that's great. So we need to also find a way to do that functionally. So her glove, which is a compression glove that provides compression for heat retention and circulation, which is great for symptom management like pains and aches and tendinitis or tendinosis, so to speak. But those extension straps that go across the start of the finger and they attach back here, their original concept was we put the glove on and as you're gripping and going about your day, say you're reaching to grab a cup. As you're gripping, those elastic bands are providing just a little bit of tension, about three quarters of a pound per squeeze of resistance, which is great for strengthening debilitated hands. They do have stronger models of the glove available, but for those that are recovering from an injury or they don't need significant, like weightlifting strength for powerlifting or rock climbing or something else, those that just need a little bit of exercise, but all day long to build that endurance. Because hands and fingers are marathon runners. We move thousands of times a day. We just don't think about it. And so the gloves allow you to just live your life, go about your day gripping things as you would normally do, with a little bit of extra help if you need to, for strengthening.
But those bands can also, when you're not gripping, they help pull your fingers back. So that does combat our natural cascade, the natural cascade of fingers. You can see, you know, my example here, your fingers naturally sit in this posture here. And that's because of the balance of our strong flexors.
For the geeks out there, you might refer to these flexor tendons as the flexor digitorum superficialis and the profundus. There's two tendons that flex the finger. They go through all this fascia, up through all these pulleys, and they act on them to do this within the hand itself. You've got the intrinsic muscles that spread and close and do this with the hand. Those intrinsic muscles are also involved in that, too. But as I was saying, when you're not gripping or if you're wearing it at night when you're asleep, those bands pull your fingers back, which give you a nice stretch of all that fascia here, which is what contributes to carpal tunnel syndrome. Tendinitis. Trigger finger. It's not going to reverse something called dupentrin's contracture, which is an overproduction of type 3 collagen in the hand.
People see the fingers getting kind of stuck down like this. Some people might think it's a trigger finger. It might be, but usually when it's a company with, like, nodules on the hand, it's actually a dupentrin's contracture. It's not going to remedy that, but can help offset that constant pull and help the stimulus stretch out those tendons.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Sounds like a fairly simple concept, but, you know, when you. When you take simple concepts and apply them in a practical manner, that that kind of cuts through, you know, because, like, there's always this desire of, like, you know what? I want lasers to fix me, or, like, can I get, like, some super science magnets? You know, sometimes it's just the, like, you know what, you just need something to pull back on your fingers.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: And.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: That can, you know, actually give you that oppositional, you know, balance that you were talking about.
That's. That's half the battle, right?
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I think that's why it's so successful, is people are really. We're not. We're not selling snake oil here. We're selling a device that does something that is known to be effective, known to be very helpful, Something that almost everyone needs. Maybe those that have a hand amputation may not need it, maybe don't have one or both hands, which is, you know, unfortunately, they're out there. They've had injuries or congenital, you know, anomalies. That happens as well. But in general, yeah, we've all got, you know, one to two hands, maybe extra fingers or less fingers, but we can all benefit from it. So she took a Very simple concept and made it practical and accessible to everyone. It doesn't require electricity. There's. There's no special requirements. It's generally affordable. So a lot of times when. When patients, they'll come in to see a therapist, a physical therapist, or an occupational therapist. You know, one of our basic things that we. We teach people is, you know, first, how do you stretch? Right? So we're doing nerve glides to mobilize, you know, the median nerve, the ulnar nerve, the radial nerve. And we teach stretches to pull back on those fingers and the thumb to help with everything. We just talked about carpal tunnel and tendinitis and things like a tennis elbow, which is lateral epicondylitis. All those things contribute to having that balance. Earlier you mentioned something about all the tissue under our skin. So the fascia. Right. I saw this YouTube video. I don't remember. It's probably a couple years back, and I don't remember who the author was, but she. She's up on this. This TED Talk, and she's got a person with her, and the person is in this very tight spandex suit, and the person is walking normally. And then she says, okay, I'm going to demonstrate what happens when you have tight fascia. She takes the material and she pulls. And now you're stuck like this, right? So when you're pulling on the material, it simulates the skin under the skin, the fascia. When you have that, it changes. So my shirt's black, so you can't see them very much, but when you're tight underneath, it changes the alignment of the movement patterns of your bones, your skeletal structure there. And so we need to be addressing the skin under the skin. You know, we can only see whatever you see on the outside is literally just. It's just the surface level. There's so many more layers of stuff going on in there that we have to address, which is why, you know, massage therapy is effective and. And doing things like yoga and tai chi and general sports. We need movement.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Talking about sports and athletics, like, what is the relationship between those processes of, like, you know, those things that if you're in sports and you're trying to develop skills going further than most people do, what are the.
The things that you need to be aware of not to hurt yourself or to. To take care or extra care of your body as you try to develop beyond, you know, like, because there's kind of a baseline, like, everybody's not where they should be, probably. I would say, you know, in terms of strength and everything. But I feel like athletes, you know, they're being asked by their coaches and trainers to go first. Like, average is here. And they're. They're trying to go further and beyond that. So what is the care and process behind that? And what's. What have you.
Have you done a lot of hand therapy with. With athletes or former athletes? And what have the challenges that they've overcome or have caused to themselves in perhaps overreaching?
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think when people are trying to reach that next level, they can. They can do some unintentional harm or just have some unexpected results.
Yeah, I've certainly treated my fair share of athletes and being in Nashville, lots of musicians as well. And those, those people, athletes or musicians, they may have come to see me because they happen to break a wrist or have a small injury to their hand, and they just need to get back to that sport. And so we have to really look at the biomechanics of what they have to be able to do to return.
Or sometimes they have an overuse injury, something that's developed as a cumulative musculoskeletal stress component. So, you know, someone that drumming, for example, right?
When your hand is in a certain position, actually your form is in position. You're stretching and pulling different muscles that surround the forearm based on what kind of a drumming technique you're using. Right.
In the case of sports, say, look at jiu jitsu, right? So you've got to have a very strong grip. You've got to be athletic. And so people look at, okay, how can I make, you know, something stronger? And they're focused on, okay, I need to be able to grip stronger. And so they focus all this time on curling their fingers so I can have a better grip. But you'll notice there's different grips. We've got a regular power grip. We've got a claw or a hook grip. We've got a flat fist. And all these things are bending my joints. But there's different muscles involved. What's really important to consider in this example, at least, is of unintentional consequences. Someone's, okay, I need to bend my fingers. So maybe I'm going to squeeze everything and I'm going to curl my wrist. But notice how my fingers, they straighten when I bend my wrist, right? This is called tenodesis. It's that balance of your flexor and extensor tendons in your arm. In order for you to have a strong grip, you have to have strong wrist extension. Because if my. Let's say I only train Everything on this side of my arm, people want big giant forearms, right?
In the gym, curling, dumbbells. But when you go to curl and you do this, you're now having to fight the natural pull of your extensor tendons, wanting to straighten as a result of that. So one of the keys behind a good strong grip is actually strong wrist extension. So you need to address different muscle groups that support the motion you're trying to train.
Another example might be a boxer or someone that has a swinging type sport. Golf, pickleball, tennis, baseball. That's a lot of that. Power and skill does not come from your arms. It's a factor. But even throwing, it all starts at your lower extremities, your hip and trunk. The rotation. If you're not flexible at, you know, in the hip, you're not going to have the required rotation. And that power is generated from everything from your feet up. So we have to look at what's really required. And if you're say, focused on having just a stronger swing, right, And I'm going to exaggerate here, maybe someone will say, okay, I'm just going to go to the gym, I'm going to get a bat, I'm going to hook it up to a cable, and I'm just going to swing over and over again to work on the rotator cuff. Okay, that's great. But that power has to transmit from somewhere else. You've got to have that proximal stability for distal mobility. So you've got to have the power and stability in your feet and your legs, your trunk and your core to translate all that into the bat or racket or whatever it might be.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: So it's really about like a holistic view of, of the system of musculature and ensuring that you're. When you are developing whatever set of exercises or practice or kick sets or whatever, that you're taking as much time to stretch, you know, forward as backwards, left as to. To right, your hands as much as your feet. So really just kind of reminding ourselves that, you know, like over, over working out in one area can lead to, you know, difficulties in another area. Like if you're, you know, over developed in your legs and you don't have matching shoulder and like, you can give yourself like gate problems and that.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: I think what my p. Or what people may relate to more is the. The gym rats, right? Every day is chest day, every day is arm day. Legs. Nah, let's just skip it. It's. I'm too tired for that. Squat racks, squat racks. Full. And I'm. I'm guilty of that one as well. You know, I'm a tall guy, so I've always got back stuff going on or limited hip mobility. But you've got to train everything equally. But in terms of those that are doing a sport or an activity at a high level, going back to athletes and musicians, you've got to factor in your strengthening and stretching all day, no matter what you're doing. Then you want to factor in how much time are you practicing for that art. Then how much time are you actually doing the art or sports at a competition or in an actual event. Right. So people might spend hours practicing for a recital, for an instrument. Hours and hours and hours and hours.
The actual events, five minutes, ten minutes longer. Longer too. But there's a huge imbalance there in terms of what you're training for and then what the end result is there. So you can't just look at what you're specifically training. You got to factor in those unintentional results as well. So someone that does, let's say.
Let's say someone works in construction and they're swinging a hammer or carrying bags of concrete, but they're also training for baseball or football. Right. Well, I've got to be better at that. So I'm going to go to the gym and I work on legs, I'm going to work on my swing, everything else. They've already done a full body workout working on the job site. Right. And so then they should be thinking, okay, what haven't I addressed yet? And usually people are more apt to want to strengthen and not stretch. And so they tend to overlook that mobility. And so when I think of, you know, Metaflex glove, it's like yoga for the hand. It's versatile, so you can strengthen, but you can really, really use it to stretch. Because when you're asleep or just resting, there's eight hours of just stretch to the fingers. That's why I love it so much for, you know, for recovery and prevention of injury, because a lot of those injuries happen during sports or work, whatever it is, because they haven't fully recovered. You know, they're overworked, and those tissues don't get a chance to recover. And so they. You perform at suboptimal levels.
Maybe you're cutting corners or you're tired, so you're not using the right form, whatever that might be.
We need good recovery, and that comes from solid rest.
From a biomechanical or physiological standpoint, we need circulation. We need old fluids out of our hands new in all the blood, the nutrients, all that ATP that has to be regenerated for the muscles to contract and muscles to build. You need that system in a constant flow.
An example I think of is athletes that do contrast bass. They'll jump at a SPA that's like 109 degrees and then jump into an ice bath. You get into something hot, everything dilates, opens up, you've got more blood flow and then you get into something cold and everything constricts and everything gets smaller. And so they're, they're creating this global everything open, everything closed, everything open, everything closed. And that's getting their circulation really, really, really pumping.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: I love that.
I think a lot of people, like when they, they, they don't think about the workout that they're putting their body through, driving and you know, they've got a white collar job and like, they don't think about the work that they're doing on the computer and they don't think about like the status of their body throughout that duration. Like, oh, yeah, I just went to work, I work on laptop, you know, so it's like if you're not aware of what you've done to your body for eight hours straight, you know, or with brakes, you know, minus brakes.
I feel like somebody that's in the field is like lifting heavy stuff is like, you know, they're moving precast walls and like doing the home improvement stuff. Like, they're much more mindful. I know my brother, he's, he is a foreman and he moves iron and he's much more aware of what his body is doing in his limits and his strengths than I had been up until recently.
So I feel like there's. For the white collar crowd, we perhaps don't pay as much attention to it as our blue collar colleagues because we're not forced to those, those higher endurance extremes to get paid for our basic living like that. We seemingly have it more cushy, but we're, you know, there is, I'm sure you'll tell us there's, there's stressors of sitting in traffic for an hour or two and holding onto that wheel and sitting in that position and you're extending your, your calf in a very specific, limited way. Like there, there's impacts from that that you need to counterbalance or consider.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: You're exactly right. You know, I'm, I'm a very tall guy. I'm six, eight. And for years I drove my wife's Toyota Corolla and so I am just crammed. Into this thing, my left leg is, is pushed all the way out and forward. I am leaning over kind of like on the middle console, driving like this balance. Yeah, Total total G style, right? Just kind of doing my thing. But you know, when. When you've got a budget to stick by, that is what it is.
But yeah, so you can, you know, in. In the example of, you know, white collar versus blue collar, one you're probably over strengthening, and then the other, maybe you are over stretching or allowing things to get tight. So, you know, for those of, those of us, myself included, if you're seated all day long, you know, you look at my posture here, you got forward neck, you got rounded shoulders. Everything on the inside, pecs, internal rotators, everything is getting tight. And so I need to open everything up. I need to strengthen, rhomboid, strengthen, you know, I'll bet everything in the posterior to chain to. To counteract that balance. So sometimes it's helpful not to think of maybe what's wrong or what's strong and what's weak, but maybe it's just about looking at balance. What do I spend most of my time doing and what does that do and how do I help keep that balance? The whole yin yang thing of just, you need that symmetry in our life. So if you're inside going outside to get some sun, to get some fresh air, to have those mental breaks, to be able to think of that, think of that.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: I think one of the important things, you know, I learned, you know, about how our autonomic systems trigger and we have a small brain inside our brain, the amygdala and the medulla oblongata, this kind of lizard brain that can kind of shut us down and put us at basic fight, flight, freeze, appease, and, you know, working through and understanding that, you really actually just need to pay attention to when you get thrown into those statuses. And I think that's the same with our bodies in general of like actually thinking about and paying attention to what happens with your body as you sit for the fourth hour and you haven't gotten up and like, you know, it's not, you don't need, you know, ashwagandha root right now.
Like, there's. I. I love this conversation because up until this point where I brought it up, like, there's nothing about, like these consumables. You don't, you know, it's not a big discussion about collagen. It's not a big, you know, supplement this or medicine that. It's like really the best medicine. Is like awareness and just paying attention and developing the skill of listening to your body as much as, you know, becoming aware of your own, you know, mental state. You know, things like cortisol have a huge impact on your life, on your way that you interact. And just the same way of just recognizing when you're facing something stressful and getting thrown into that response, like, okay, well, you know, maybe I can back off of this. And it's the same of recognizing with your body of like, hey, my hand is falling asleep, is numb in the middle of the night, and that's not normal.
Maybe I should become more aware of what I'm doing with that arm through the day so that, you know, at night I'm not just trying to. Okay, well, let's wake up the pins and needles.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:30:01] Speaker A: It shouldn't take that long.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: That's a really good point. You know, especially from the mental health standpoint. You know, the mental health component of our life is just as much physical as anything else. Because you mentioned the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system. You know, we had a talk yesterday with a well known neuroscientist, Dr. Izzy Justice. He has a, has an app called Neuro580 where he brings in these principles using neurohacks to bring ourselves out of a state of overactive thinking.
You know, basically too much brain activity that doesn't allow us to perform at our optimal, optimal selves. And so what you had said about if you're in a heightened state, you know, some might call it, you know, the flight or fight or whatever it might be, but someone that is overly anxious or has a lot of stress, if they're, if their limbic system or their lizard brain is in a certain rhythm, you know, you might be in a constant state of arousal and stress. So your body's basically ready to fight. So you've got muscle tension, you're not eating as much, you're postured in such a way for self defense or feeling insecure. So maybe at night you are sleeping in a much more protected fetal position. And so that would contribute to. There's your carpal tunnel maybe coming out, you've got some compression of that median nerve, right? And so bringing in that mental health component of okay, how are you when you go to bed? Are you getting good restful sleep?
Not to wander off too much, but sleep is when the brain organizes the information from the day. That's where all the processing happens.
When I was in school, I remember liking it to, it's like Sleep is like a shower for your brain. It helps you let go of all the background stuff and you retain the stuff that's important and so you can catalog it for, you know, for later retrieval in your long term versus short term memory. Having quality street, having quality sleep is really important. And again, another tangent. If your hands are hurting and you're waking up constantly and you're not able to get into a good circadian rhythm, you get into a REM cycle because maybe you've got, you know, hand pain or paracetias in your fingers, numbness and tingling from carpal tunnel, you're not going to be able to have that. So, yeah, that's another example of, I guess, how the Metaflex glove can indirectly treat or assist with that mental health component too, for those that can't sleep because of hand symptoms. But good point.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: I love that. So tell me a little bit more about.
I, I know that there's probably some fairly extreme cases of rehab that you've worked with.
Is there anything that you're working on as far as, like, case studies or, you know, studies on, through your therapy classes that are yielding interesting or surprising results that you'd like to share? And if you're going to any conferences or presenting anything, if you want to give us a tease of some of the insights that you've been working on as a medical professional with hands.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, I wear a couple of different hats. I'm with Vanderbilt as well.
Obviously I can't break any patient identifying information. But, you know, there's lots of interesting findings that, you know, we didn't see with respect to Metaflex. Right. So one of the things that kind of came about was that patients with Ehlers Danlos, you know, that with that condition you've got hypermobility, you know, your collagen is looser or more elastic than others. And so you've got, you know, different, different sensations. And so they, you know, while stretching is contraindicated for that, for that diagnosis, that proprioceptive input that those bands give to their joints by pulling back, they found helpful and comforting.
Another example might be, you know, patients that they've had some sort of a central nervous system condition, so they're a stroke or a tbi and they've got what we call spasticity or high tone or even low tone in the upper extremity where, you know, either their, their hand is unable to open freely or volitionally like this here. You know, as a therapist, we really try to, you know, emphasize, you Know one, how do we prevent a long term contracture? How do we make sure those soft tissues don't permanently change so that, you know, the joints themselves stay healthy. So we're, we're constantly trying to open the fingers up.
And while the metaphors glove isn't strong enough to counteract super strong tone for those that have low tone or they're easily able to be passively ranged, those bands have been actually helpful in keeping those fingers open.
One example that came about by from another therapist was they had a patient that was able to grip, you know, squeeze something, but they lacked the ability to really fully open their hands.
Maybe they did have some ability to open their fingers but it wasn't strong enough to counteract the tone of their flexor tendons. And so they were able to use the glove with it on. They had enough strength to flex to be able to grab that. I think it was a golf ball or something. And the bands actually pulled their hand fingers back when they relaxed and activated the extensors part of it. So that was an adaptive tool but also a training tool because it's a way to actively assist a desired motion.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Fantastic. I love like the follow through and like taking a simple concept and seeing how it can be applied elsewhere. I think Vanderbilt's a fantastic study university.
Excited to see what comes out of there. What's coming up on your plate in the next six months as we kind of round the corner on this interview?
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Six months.
Well, later this month we're going to the American Congress of Rehabilitative Medicine, acrm. It's out in Chicago.
One of my poster presentations was accepted through Vanderbilt. We had a patient that had a significant injury to their hand. It was essentially amputated. The amazing team at Vanderbilt was able to use the resources and in all other circumstances the arm would have likely been chosen to just be amputated.
Instead, the team was able to perform a limb salvage technique. We were able to stabilize the skeleton, recreate vascular perfusion, get function back. And so really was a miraculous save of someone's arm. And that's what Vanderbilt is known for, is they're a level one trauma center and they're, you know, specialists on top of specialists being able to do things that, you know, regular hospitals or you know, you know, organizations maybe can't do. And so I get the privilege of sharing that great recovery. Again, this is a, this is a story of a patient that was very committed and you know, she, you know, she did a great job. And part of that, part of that talk is we get to talk about the relationship of a multidisciplinary team. You know, it didn't just. Just involve, you know, her or one therapist. It was a team of occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, MD, RNS, PAS, and of course, the central player, the patient. You know, we started off tackling, you know, the basic stuff. How does she get back to getting dressed? How does she do things she likes to be able to do? You know, at first things were healing, so we can't move. So we had to use, you know, assistive devices.
Metaflex glove was one of those devices. You know, normally I would have fabricated a custom orthotic or a splinter abras, some might call it, to help to hold the wrist in extension and then lift the fingers up because of the damage that was done to her tissues there.
But because we had a big plate going through across the wrist, we didn't need a standard, standard brace. All she needed help with was actually opening her fingers. So what did we do? She tried a metaphlex glove. And at that time, I wasn't even associated with it with Metaflex.
And it was more of a, hey, this is a really cool. A really cool idea. And so we kind of learned about it through there.
Um, and with that, she was able to actively open her hand because she didn't have the ability to open her fingers. She had flexors, but just couldn't open. Yeah, able to use the glove. So I was able to help with that, that project and get that poster to be presented on.
Next year, early next year, we're going to Canada. I'm going to be likely presenting on the Biomechanics of Drumming with the Canadian Percussion Network. I've got submission out to present there, so that'll be a lot of fun. Can't think of anything else, can you?
[00:39:25] Speaker A: I think that's for. That's a lot more than most, I think it. I think you kind of struck something with, like, thinking about, you know, like these, because I'm trying to learn flamenco style guitar and. And I can just imagine, like professionals that are doing, you know, music constantly. That's so much flexors like that, so much so just like percussionists, how they hold that.
And also that killer story of, you know, a limb being, you know, restored. That's so awesome. Well, I'm going to let you go. I appreciate the time and your contributions. So I'll make sure that any resources that you mention get added to the show notes for anybody that's interested, adding links to those, the details as they come available to those conferences in the future. Thanks so much for stopping in.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me. And for those looking to find more information, there's the American Society of Hand therapy, American Occupational OT Association, AOTA. You can also find hand therapist locally at htcc.org.
there's lots of knowledgeable professionals out there. Just got to reach out and find us.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Thanks so much. See you later.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Have a good one.
