Wrist and Hand Rehabilitation Post-Fracture for Intermediates

Program Overview This is a 7-week, intermediate-level rehabilitation guide for wrist and hand recovery after a fracture. It is designed to rebuild motion, strength, and confidence in your wrist through supervised exercise and hands-on therapy.

Who This Program Is For and Its Goal This program suits people whose fracture has begun healing and who have been cleared to move the wrist under guidance. Sessions run twice weekly for 60 minutes over 7 weeks. The goal is to gradually restore wrist movement, forearm rotation, grip and pinch strength, and everyday hand function while protecting the healing bone and preventing stiffness.

Before You Start Please begin only after your treating clinician has reviewed this plan with you and confirmed your fracture is stable enough for this level of activity. Your therapist will adjust exercises to your stage of healing.

Safety Notes and When to Stop This program is not appropriate if you have compartment syndrome or active acute inflammation; your clinician will screen for these. Stop and contact your clinician if pain rises sharply or steadily during or after exercise, if you notice new or worsening numbness or tingling (especially in the thumb and fingers), increasing swelling, color or temperature changes, or if your splint feels too tight. These are signs to pause, not push through.

Weekly Structure Sessions are scheduled twice each week, 60 minutes each, across seven weeks. Your therapist will guide the pace and confirm when you are ready to advance.

How the 7-Week Plan Is Organized The program moves through gentle phases: early protection and swelling control, then controlled motion, then broader mobility, and finally light strengthening. Although balance board and kettlebell are listed as available equipment, your therapist will only introduce them in ways appropriate for a healing wrist, and may modify or omit them. Expect the focus to shift from gentle movement toward more active, functional work as the weeks pass.

What a Typical Session Looks Like Each session generally follows a warm-up, a main treatment block, and a cool-down. Your therapist tailors the content to how your wrist responds.

Warm-Up, Main Work, and Cool-Down Warm-up may include gentle tendon gliding, light wrist and forearm movement, and soft tissue work. The main block could involve hands-on carpal mobilization and massage, controlled wrist and forearm exercises, edema care such as compression and elevation, and light proprioceptive or weight-bearing tasks as tolerated. The cool-down includes gentle stretching and swelling control. Balance board and kettlebell use, if introduced, will be low-level and closely supervised.

Tracking Progress Your therapist records range of motion, grip and pinch strength, and how you feel during daily tasks to guide your plan.

How Progression Criteria and Outcome Measures Are Used You move to the next phase when you meet simple, therapist-checked milestones—such as comfortable wrist movement within limits, reduced swelling, and pain staying low. Your therapist uses outcome measures like the DASH and Michigan Hand questionnaires, the Patient-Specific Functional Scale, and grip and pinch testing to see progress objectively and adjust the plan. Progression is gradual, not automatic.

Recovery and Self-Care Between sessions, follow your splinting and swelling-control instructions, keep the hand elevated when swollen, and do only the home exercises your therapist approves.

Pain Management, Rest, and Red Flags Some mild soreness is common, but avoid overloading and stop if pain increases. Rest the wrist if it feels irritated, and report any sudden increase in pain, new numbness, spreading swelling, or skin changes promptly. Do not add new exercises or equipment on your own; let your clinician decide what is safe.