Upper Body Carrying Exercises for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Video Transcript

" Hi! I am Monica and here is another exercise for someone that has CRPS in their upper extremity. Again, this is something that an occupational or physical therapist might give you as a home exercise program and it's simply referred to as carrying. What you want to do is you want to get your upper extremities used to carrying heavy objects again. In this case, we will start off with my right hand, this is the hand that is affected by CRPS and when you are walking around or just standing like I am right now, you want to just hold on to a weight. It can be nice and light, does not have too much at all, half a pound to pound might be the only thing you can tolerate to begin with and then once you get used to it you can tolerate that more. You can start adding more weight so I can hold on to a couple of weights in my hands. This is something that you try and make functional throughout the days so you are not just standing with weights like I am right now, but you can get little wrist bands that are weighted that you can put on your wrist so you can wear them as you are walking around throughout the day and try to make it again as functional as possible."