- So what if your injury is not related to playing?
What if you fall down, break your wrist, break your finger,
get a big cut with a knife.
What do you do?
Well, the first thing is to decide,
if something needs to be done emergently,
it needs to be done right that minute.
If you have a big laceration,
that needs to be sewn up within two hours.
So you're not gonna have a lot of choice.
You get the best doctor you can,
and you tell them exactly
what you need to do with that finger,
so that the surgeon can sew you up in such a way,
that you'll have the best recovery that you can.
If it's a fracture or something that can wait,
then wait for a day, you can ask the doctor,
can I take a day to find the best doctor for me?
And the doctor will tell you, yes, you can or no, you can't.
Many times broken bones can be temporarily positioned.
And then you have a surgical set later,
that gives you time to find the doctor,
that's the best in your area
for handling problems with musicians.
Now, if it's a problem that has been sewn up
by the best doc, then comes the rehabilitation part.
That's the problem, I really see the most of
because normal is not good enough for you.
You are an athlete, you're an elite athlete.
So you have to have more range of motion,
meaning more flexibility than the average person.
And you have to have much greater strength.
It's really important that the physician
and your physical therapist understand clearly,
what the demands of playing are.
One thing I do with my patients, once they get well enough,
then I have the physical therapist work
with them and their instrument to get complete recovery.
So don't settle for normal.
You are super normal.
You're an athlete.
Another thing to consider, particularly with cases
of trauma, let's say you fall and you break your wrist.
Well, that will require some immobilization
for the wrist to heal.
That means your wrist is in a cast and nothing moves.
Well, if it's your left hand and you're a violinist,
when that cast comes off, your bones may be well,
but that's really a problem.
What I would advise is from that very first time of trauma,
that you get an arts medicine physician on your team.
That is an arts medicine physician
that can work with your surgeon
and helping your rehabilitation be more complete for you.
Anything that's complicated, or maybe it's simple
but it's an important joint
like the left wrist is to a violinist,
the arts medicine doc needs to be
in there early, early in the scene.
I had a woman who slipped and fell down,
and injured her left wrist as a violinist.
It wasn't a bad fracture, but it was a fracture,
it had to be casted for a while in order to recover.
Well, the casts are generally put in about this position
which is called a resting hand position.
Well, that won't work obviously,
if you're gonna play the violin,
you have to have a lot of flexibility.
So we had to work long and hard to get that done.
And we needed a physical therapist with a lot of expertise
because there are many bones in the wrist.
And in order to stretch the stiff ones, but not overstretch
the ones that were fine, we had to work very meticulously.
So another warning flag is,
if you have a hand therapist, physical therapist
or occupational therapist that doesn't look North,
into the shoulder and into the neck, that's a problem,
because sometimes these areas get bunged up,
but also you shouldn't be getting therapy,
that's just hot pack ultrasound massage.
That's not therapy.
In therapy of one person works with the patient
one at a time, and that's what you need
in order to get to your elite athlete status again.