Mob'ing a partial carpal arthrodesis

[lehughes]

Hi Laurie,
How are you? I was hoping I could bend your ear on an assessment I had tonight. You actually know the owner ’S.W.’ (she says to say hi). Her 4 year old komondor-poodle cross had a partial carpal arthrodesis (fusion of his carpals 1-4 and metacarpals 2-4) 12 weeks ago after a fall. I was wondering how much I should try and mobilize the radiocarpal joint. My first thought was mobilize, then I started thinking that the radio carpal joint is the only joint left to absorb extension forces and will probably end up being hypermobile.  So then i thought maybe just leave it or mobilize a small amount.  Any thoughts or am I just over thinking this?
Cheers,
C.

[lehughes]

Hi C!

Sorry for my tardy reply.  I seem to have a million obligations hitting me all at the same time here!  Argh!

Okay, so for the carpal arthrodesis, all of your thoughts are correct.  Mobilizing doesn’t have to be just to increase movement, it can be to help with pain, swelling, inflammation and to gain a normal glide.
So I think doing a little bit is fine, so long as you are not excessive about it, or spending much time at end range, but grade 2’s and 3’s could be very beneficial.  

(I think I had a blog on it a while back - I had read a human PT blog that was asking about mobilizing an ankle sprain… the answer was pretty much the same.  I went back to find it.  It’s at:  https://www.fourleg.com/Blog/306/Mobiliz ... bile-joint)

Good luck and please say hello back to ’S.W.’!

Cheers,

Laurie