Hands across Borders was invited by the principal of the JPP College Mysore by Dr Kavitha Raja to conduct a workshop on the rehabilitation of the hand.

On two days, 23 rd. of Nov and 40 participants form Mysore and other cities were present. The first talk was by plastic surgeon Dr Vijay who spoke on flexor tendon repair, the second by PT lecturer Mr Jakson who gave a good overview of the anatomy of the hand. After that Ton Schreuders presented on tendon, nerve repair and on wrist injuries. The afternoon of the second day several patients were brought in, two of them with early and late rheumatoid arthritis problems. The rest of the day was spent on splinting. BSN has been so kind to provide the soft cast material for this workshop. Several splint were made. At the Schieffelien Leprosy training center Karigiri Wim Brandsma and Ton Schreuders were both involved in a seminar on hand rehabilitation. The director/surgeon Dr Manam Ebenezer also lectured during the workshop with a lively talk on the paralytic hand. He showed to be a great teacher and got all the 30 participants involved. Positive feedback was given by the participants who were form neighboring cities of Vellore, Chennai and Bangalore.

The day after Wim and Ton visited the Paul Brand memorial institute at Vellore and saw some of the participants at work in this famous hospital were the image of Paul Brand who had worked there for many years was omnipresent. The hand therapy department was more than busy with patients waiting to get their therapy. Flexor tendon repairs, tendon transfers, burns and more complicated trauma like Volkmann’s contracture were in therapy. At the wards it became clear that Prof Thomas and his team are performing high tech procedures for plexus lesions with using the unilateral nerves as a graft for the injured plexus nerves. Neurotization and nerve transfers were done on a regular basis! One surgeon had just spend 6 weeks in Gothenburg to learn to do the tendon transfer for high spinal cord lesions patients hands. Staff expressed interest in cooperating with HAB and invited us to come again.

At the 4th International conference of Physical Therapy at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi a post congress workshop was organized on hand therapy after nerve damage by Mr. Pankaj Gupta, a FT working at the TLM hospital for leprosy patients in Delhi. Pankaj and Ton run a full day course on different aspects of hand therapy including sensory testing and manual muscle testing. More than 60 PTs attended the workshop. Pankaj and Ton conducted a similar workshop at the Physiotherapy college of the ITS group just outside Delhi for a group of 30 students and therapists.

– Ton Schreuders & Wim Brandsma