♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- And we are the most famous,
physical therapists on the Internet.
- In our opinion of course Bob.
- Today we're gonna show you
how to use the TENS unit with hand pain,
specifically we're gonna show you correct pad placement
at the end of the video where actually as a bonus
and also we wouldn't promote that you wanna move always,
when you have TENS problem, like when you're gonna use TENS.
- With pain, yeah.
- Add some movement or exercise along with it,
maybe not while the Tens is on,
but after the TENS has been on.
So we're gonna show you what is called
the six-pack range of motion, it's from Mayo Clinic
is where I learned it
but I'm sure they're not the ones that invented it.
- It sounds like Wisconsin thing to me.
- Yeah six-pack, yeah it does.
All right Brad and I have tried dozens and dozens of units
over our careers and we have always found the units
to be really fine, acceptable,
a lot of them are powerful, a lot of them are compact.
The only thing is with some of them,
I thought their instructions are terrible on some of them.
So what we decided after a bit
is that we're gonna endorse just one brand
with endorse the eye relief,
basically because it is compact
powerful approved by the FDA
really got their act together this company a
really good instructional booklet that
comes along with a good customer support
all those things got a lot of range of
units it's their thing you know that's
what they do what they do TENS units.
- Right.
- So they got the wireless one
that we're endorsing
and give instructions on the 8080 which Bob has
on his hand which does not take batteries
that's chargeable with a USB and
then this one is kind of the intro one a
little cheaper but it does have batteries.
- Yeah so if you want
instructions I will show you
step-by-step videos on how to use these
three.
- Right
- So go to BobandBrad.com
by the way this is completely free
BobandBrad.com go to the program section
we have an entire program on TENS unit.
By the way we have an entire program on
sciatica and plantar fascia too.
So you may want to check those out.
But go to that program section look
for TENS and then look for the 80 80 80
or the 13 13 or the 50/50 whichever one
you want.
If you bought a different tens unit
you're gonna have to use their instructions
coz we can't help you out
because we don't know every TENS unit that's out there.
- But the pad placement will
be the same for any TENS unit that we're
talking about today specifically and
along with the program each video under
TENS has its own PDF print out so you
don't have to go back and look at the
video all the time you can use it for a
reference which is a really nice yeah convenience.
- Yeah So when you want to see where we
put the pads you can just look at it
print it out and you'll have it with you
right when I put the pads on.
With the hand you are pretty limited on what
you're gonna do, you're pretty much gonna
use just two pads yep because these come
with four pads generally two channels
and to each channel has two pads so
I'm hooked up to one channel right now
I'm actually hooked up to channel two
- right right now these two pads would be
channel one.
- Yeah now you can also
basically go two pads on the you know
this would become sort of the front of the hand
to the palm of the hand yeah.
And this is the back of the hand or
dorsal surface for a therapist
- Right.
- So you can put two on the back there really
there's no room for four you know there
just isn't so you know some of the
guidelines you may want to wash with
soap and water prior,
- for sure yeah
- Because you'll remove the oils from your skin
which can be a little bit harmful to the pad .
And they won't stick as well,
- they won't conduct as well so they won't they won't
work as well especially on the hand
- Especially over time too
yeah yeah I mean the first couple times
you'll be fine and then all sudden
you'll find it won't be working as well.
A little water on the pad surface too
will help take some of that oil off and make
the pad work better again.
- You get water but get the water off
before you stick it on--
- Yeah, right right
- So this is one setting that
one placement here that we put I got
channel two generally you want to try to
keep at least the pads width apart so
- Right
- You know and again it's not a
lot of room in the hand we like it so that
you can actually move your hand a little
bit obviously you can't use your hand
while these are on so this
is gonna be something where you're maybe
watching TV or fairly stationary.
- Right
- You cannot we just tried this
works really good you can
actually put it around a finger.
- One finger if you got a real painful finger.
- And then I have the other one
and you know it's funny when I did this I felt
it really strong in the finger
and I only went up to level 1 or level 2 on
the intensity but I didn't feel this pad at all
- Right
- So that's just how it was working
but it was definitely working on
that finger
- Right
- So if you can go to
the back of the hand, why don't we take
the yellow ones Brad just so that's
channel one same thing you can put one
right there and then one a little bit lower
I'm almost getting down to the
wrist now maybe I'll stay a little bit off the wrist.
- Actually you could treat like
this say your pinky was really painful
and the back of your hand was painful this yep
- This would be acceptable.
- Right
- This is all experiment you know you're gonna
try these things you're gonna see what
works for you when you find what works for you,
you just keep doing that
you don't need to continue to experiment.
- Yeah so he's talking about pad placement
- Right pad placement
- You know move it here or there's no specific way.
You just can't get them too close
- And if you have really a hairy hand you
might have to shave that hand.
So if you've got a little bit of a like what's
the monster that werewolf saw
- Oh yeah
- Werewolf
- Werewolves of London
that Warren Zevon song it reminds you of.
All right, We're going to show you now Brad the exercise
do you mind taking the pads off
- Yeah I'll take care of that
- You can Then you can go ahead
and put those in place
and oh thanks for
pulling my hair off yeah
- Not a problem.
- All right, first, there's six exercises pretty easy to do
but this is just a great one to do
you can do a 5 to 10 repetitions of each one.
Got the hand right here you can do what we
call finger abduction which means you're
spreading the fingers apart
just like that
do it like said five to ten times.
And what we're doing is here is basically
working every joint of the hand.
Next one we do what is called tabletop
lumbricals right brad?
- It reminds me of
- Yeah so you're gonna go like this
make a tabletop but you're gonna do
the third one which is go up to the claw.
So table top, claw, tabletop, claw.
So you're getting two done at the
same time here.
Again five to ten repetitions,
number four you can do the
full fist curl, so you're gonna curl it all
the way up as far as you can.
curl it up as far as you can,
you're gonna work that all the way down.
And the next one we're
actually gonna work the thumb here a
little bit so, thumb's gonna go to each finger.
You touch the finger you open
wide touch the finger open wide go all
the way down and then you can reverse going backwards.
- If your hands are stiff
or painful, you know you can use your
other hand to help a little bit.
- Yeah go as far as you can and if you need
assistance go ahead and do it.
Let's see actually the one they do for you if
you've been driving and drinking right Brad?
- I thought you would know
(laughing)
we're not gonna admit to anything.
- All right the last one is actually gonna
take the thumb it's just really a thumb one.
You're gonna take it to the fifth digit,
to the base of the fifth digit like this.
- The pinky
- Yeah the pinky
- I can't even get mine there see,
- This is a good example of Brad, he's got a
stiffness there, he's lacking flexion
and circumduction of the of the thumb.
It's not good enough, he's gonna have to work on that one.
- Well I've got so much muscle
in there and my hypothenar eminence or
- You could you could tell yourself that
- Look at that bones and muscle bone yeah
(laughing)
- So that's a great exercise you can do it
a couple times a day keeps the hand
loose prevents it from beginning stiff like Brad's
- Well I can do it with my right hand
but not my left.
- yeah so you need to work on that
- Yeah whatever
all right thanks everybody for watching
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