Wrist Injuries

Injuries of the wrist are hugely common in sports. Hockey, lacrosse, winter sports, golf, racquet sports are all common culprits of the wrist injury and unfortunately if you play one of these sports and others, you are likely to sustain injury in some point in your sporting career.

 

The most common injury to the wrist is a sprain or partially torn ligament as a result of over stretching. Overuse injury as a result of continually putting added strain on the wrist is also a very commonly seen injury of the wrist and fractures to the wrist can occur when a wrist injury is left untreated or sudden forces are applied to the area. Other causes of wrist injury can be landing on it, miss-hitting and repetitive motion in the wrist.

It may be wise to invest in a wrist brace or support in order to stabilise an injury such as an Aircast Wrist Brace

Symptoms of wrist injuries can be the appearance of swelling and bruising and often a loss of movement, strength and function in certain directions where the wrist is overused in a certain way.

In order to treat a wrist injury, the best method is to immediately apply ice to the area in order to reduce swelling and to continually reapply every few hours for a 2 day period. During this time, the wrist should remain stabilised with a support or splint so to restrict any movement, allowing the injury to heal and to ensure no further damage occurs.

Allowing your wrist adequate healing time of up to two to three weeks and ensuring that you are able to move the wrist pain-free before recommencing sport will ensure that your injury is healed and prevent further injury. During this time wrist exercises such as spreading and closing your fingers, lifting and turning the fingers and squeezing and releasing a stress ball will allow circulation through the area as well provide rehabilitation for the injury, improving the strength for when it has healed.

To prevent these injuries, ensure that in sports which require a racquet or stick, you are using equipment that is the correct size for your hand, making sure that your fingers are not spread too wide but equally don’t touch each other. If you find you are prone to wrist injuries, you may want to re-evaluate your technique so that you haven’t picked up any bad habits that may be causing the injury.