Specialist assessment and rehabilitation for hand and wrist injuries, post-operative recovery and chronic conditions in Wimbledon, South West London. Alex Watson creates tailored treatment plans and bespoke splints on site designed to maximise function and independence.
You can book directly: no GP referral needed.
Skilled Care for Your Hands
Your hands are remarkable tools. You create, work, communicate and care using them every day. When injury, pain or dysfunction affects your hand or wrist, simple tasks like buttoning a shirt or typing a message can become a challenge.
Hand therapy is a rehabilitation specialty that focuses on restoring function when there are changes in pain, strength and mobility in your hands, wrists or upper limb. It combines techniques from Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy such as exercise, splinting, wound care, scar interventions and joint mobilisation to provide non‑surgical management of hand and wrist disorders.
Put your hand recovery in the right hands in Mint wellbeing, Wimbledon, South West London.
What is Hand Therapy?
Hand therapy is more than a single treatment modality, it is a combination of specialist assessment, targeted rehabilitation and compassionate support through the recovery journey from injury, surgery or disease. We explore your underlying difficulties with a view to:
- Determine the cause of your pain or issue
- Reduce pain
- Reduce inflammation
- Improve hand and wrist efficiency
- Minimise the effects of scarring
The ultimate goal is to restore or maximise independence.
Hand therapists act as your resource and guide through your recovery. Hand therapy employs exercise, advice on daily activities, splinting and scar management amongst others. This holistic approach aims to promote your physical recovery while also providing emotional and psychological support through what can be a difficult and stressful time.
Conditions We Treat
Every hand is unique, and so are the conditions that affect it. For symptoms and common causes, read about hand and wrist pain. Our service provides expert care for a wide range of injuries and long‑term conditions:
Tendon pain and injuries
- Pain on the little-finger side of the wrist (extensor carpi ulnaris tendinopathy)
- Pain on the thumb side of the wrist, often worse when gripping or lifting (De Quervain’s tenosynovitis)
Wrist pain and injuries
- Wrist ligament injuries and repairs (scapholunate and lunotriquetral ligaments)
- Pain on the little-finger side of the wrist after a fall or twist (TFCC injuries: triangular fibrocartilage complex)
- Wrist pain with no clear cause, or a wrist that clicks: we assess it, then treat it or refer you on
Arthritis and long-term conditions
- Pain and weakness in loose, bendy finger, thumb or wrist joints (hypermobility syndromes)
- Osteoarthritis in the hand or wrist: help managing your symptoms, splints where they help, and advice on adapting everyday tasks
- Rheumatoid arthritis: help managing your symptoms, splints where they help, and advice on adapting everyday tasks
- A finger that catches, clicks or locks when you bend it (trigger finger), with referral to a surgeon if therapy doesn’t help
Finger, thumb and wrist injuries
- A fingertip that droops and won’t straighten (mallet finger)
- A middle finger joint that won’t straighten after an injury (central slip injury, or boutonnière deformity)
- Sprained fingers, most often the middle joint
- Dislocated finger joints
- Broken bones in the hand or wrist that don’t need an operation, including a broken wrist (distal radius fracture)
- A sprained thumb, for example from a fall while skiing (skier’s thumb: MCPJ sprain)
- Numbness, tingling or weakness from a trapped or stretched nerve (carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, pronator syndrome, brachial plexus injuries)
Recovery after surgery
- Wound care
- Scar advice and treatment, not only on the hand
- Tendon repairs (flexor or extensor tendons), from 5 days after your operation, as long as we can see your operation notes and the wound doesn’t need highly specialist care
- Surgery for Dupuytren’s contracture (fasciotomy or dermofasciotomy)
- Thumb base joint surgery (joint replacement or trapeziectomy)
- A broken hand or wrist fixed with surgery, including a broken wrist (distal radius fracture)
- Nerve repair (median, ulnar or radial nerve)
How Hand Therapy Helps
Whether you’re recovering from trauma, overuse injuries, surgery or managing a chronic condition, hand therapy offers many benefits.
Techniques and approaches to treat your hand and wrist may include:
- Home exercise programme, most of your recovery is determined by your day to day exercises and how your use your hands (functional rehabilitation)
- Structured rehabilitation and hands on therapy to restore range of motion
- Custom splinting and bracing
- Taping techniques
- Strengthening exercises
- Scar Management
- Stretching
- Ergonomic assessment
- Therapeutic Ultrasound
Aims of therapy:
- Return to everyday activities
- Improve independence
- Reintegration into hobbies and sports
- Information and advice to help you manage the condition effectively
- Improve dexterity
- Rebuild strength
Our Approach
You deserve the best care for your hands and we believe in goal‑oriented care that centres on you. Every client receives a thorough assessment and a personalised home‑based rehabilitation programme. We aim to provide timely treatment that fosters independence by equipping you with the skills and knowledge to manage your condition. We offer custom‑moulded splints, exercise programmes and education to support your recovery.
Our team collaborates closely with surgeons, GPs, physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals to ensure seamless care.
Begin Your Recovery Journey
If hand pain or dysfunction is affecting your quality of life, Alex Watson, our Specialist Hand Therapist is here to help. With expert knowledge, compassionate care and evidence‑based techniques, we can help you reduce pain, restore function and return to the activities that matter most to you.
Get back to what you love.
Who you’ll see
Alex has more than 20 years of clinical experience, and for the past 11 years he has worked only with hands and wrists. He makes custom splints for his patients in the clinic, and he’s a member of the British Association of Hand Therapists.
