Out with the old, in with the new

Karsen's new thumb/wrist splint came in the mail today. It has a thermoplastic stay in his thumb to keep him from curling his thumb back into his palm so he wont need surgery on his hand later on down the road. For those of you that don't know, kids with cerebral palsy have the tendency to keep their affected hand in a fist. This can cause a lot of tendon tightness, which could call for surgery later on down the road if not watched carefully. I thought I would show you all the few braces Karsen has got. He's grown out of all of them except for one, and then of course his new one that came in today. When his OT comes tomorrow, we'll set his new brace to his thumb exactly. 

Here's his old thumb splint, that he quickly out grew and figured out his way around it... that little stinker. This is a McKies pediatric thumb splint. He wore this mostly at night but sometimes during the day when his hand was a little more tight than normal. Look at that tiny little thing.

 This is the supinator strap, also by McKies, he would wear with the thumb splint occasionally to help him turn his wrist toward the ceiling. So if you look at your hand, palm facing toward the ground and turn your hand so your palm is facing the ceiling. That's  your supinator muscle. Those also have the tendency to tighten up as well, Karsen's was particularly tight but has improved greatly. 

 This is his bamboo brace, that's the brand if you are curious. There is changeable plastic pieces that vary from really flexible to firm. This brace helps support his arm to bare weight. It wraps around his elbow preventing him to bend his arm. 

 This is his new supinator strap, also by McKies. The older one was getting too short, we weren't able to wrap it around enough.

 This is his new thumb/wrist splint. It's a Benik splint. We'll be trying this puppy out tomorrow. We are suppose to heat it up a little so we can mold the plastic thumb piece to his thumb. I'm waiting for Mary Beth to do that for sure. ;-) I'm not quite confident enough to do that on my own.

Choosing a color for this thumb/wrist splint was actually pretty hard for me. I didn't want it to be obvious, I wanted to avoid all the questions from strangers and little kids (lets me honest, they never have a filter) but I also wanted him to have a color that would draw his attention to that side. So, with that said, I decided out with the nude color in with the blue color. Catchy... lol 

Hope you feel a little more educated on splints today. ;-) I am so thankful for the many people that created these so kids wont need to endure painful surgery.