Use of relative motion orthoses from the perspective of hand-injured patients: A qualitative study.

Background: Relative motion (RM) orthoses have gained popularity with therapists as their versatility lends to "protective," "exercise," and "adaptive" uses.

Purpose Of The Study: To ask for comments from patients wearing RM orthoses for protective or exercise reasons.

Study Design: Interpretive descriptive qualitative study.

Methods: Semi-structured face-to-face interviews comprised of nine open-ended questions were conducted with 20 hand injured patients who were advised to wear a protective or exercise RM orthosis for at least 4 weeks.

Results: Twenty patients participated in the interviews. Thirteen patients wore the protective RM orthoses had a mean age of 28 years (range,16-54) and the mean age was 34 years (range, 20-51) for 7 patients using exercise RM orthoses. Interviews generated 4 major themes: physical characteristics of the orthoses, challenges in daily living activities, emotional response to orthotic wear, and impact of social environment.

Discussion: Comments from both groups of patients suggested the small size of the orthosis contributed to wearing the orthosis as advised. Most found the orthosis comfortable, when not, comments were related to rubbing of the orthosis causing pain and rigidity of the orthosis resulting in finger swelling. A few were impacted by the orthosis drawing attention to their injured hand. Those wearing the exercise RM orthosis often removed it instead of using it for nonintentional exercise.

Conclusions: Comments obtained from the limited structured interview of 20 patients wearing protective or exercise RM orthosis may offer therapists with some understanding from the patient's perspective. Additional study is worthwhile.