Effects of Home-Based Hand Exercises on Pain and Function in Patients with Hand Osteoarthritis

Background: The evidence specific for the benefits and harms of exercises in hand osteoarthritis (OA) is limited and conflicting. We set out to investigate whether hand exercise leads to a clinically important change in hand pain, and its function. Methods: A total of 40 patients over 40 years of age whose hand OA was confirmed by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria, were divided into control and intervention groups and filled the visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Functional Index for Hand Osteoarthritis (FIHOA) questionnaires. 4 weeks of physical hand exercise at home was performed by the intervention group and the control group was assigned to waiting list and the indices were recorded again. Results: The ability to perform daily activities in the patients who received the exercise program showed improvement in their FIHOA questionnaire, and these changes were statistically significant for all movements measured. After four weeks of exercise, the mean FIHOA score in the intervention group was significantly (P=0.008) decreased, while the score changes in the control group was not significant (P=0.344). Intergroup comparison showed that the FIHOA score changes was statistically significant (P=0.036) after intervention between the intervention and control groups. The total VAS score significantly decreased during 4 weeks in the intervention group (P<0.01) but increased in the control group. Conclusion: The hand exercise program resulted in pain reduction and hand function improvement on self-reported measures. Integrating hand exercise in therapy can be beneficial in non-pharmacological treatment of OA of the hand.