Book reviews

Rosemary Prosser & W. Bruce Connolly. Rehabilitation

of the Hand and Upper Limb. Butterworth Heinemann,

ISBN 0 7506 2263 6.

The subject of this book, the rehabilitation of the hand and

upper limb, is one of particular interest to sports

physiotherapists and all those working in sports health, as

these areas due to their complexity can be less well

understood than other anatomical regions. Conditions and

injuries to the hand in particular are often referred onto the

specialist hand therapist, thus leaving a number of clinicians

with less experience and frequency of assessing and treating

these problems. The conservative and surgical management

of pathologies of the upper limb reflect the unique functional

role of this body region in the positioning of the hand to

undertake intricate and precise functional movement

patterns. The specific therapeutic treatments of this part of

the body have beenwell presented and described in this book.

The book encompasses all the upper limb but the overall

emphasis is placed on the hand and wrist. The elbow and

shoulder are included but at a more superficial level, therefore

there are probably better books available that present the

elbow and shoulder in greater detail. There is a wide variety of

contributors to the book from different disciplines (phy-

siotherapists, occupational therapists, orthopaedic surgeons

and clinical hand specialists) providing a well rounded and

comprehensive view of the subject. The book starts with an

introductory chapter on wound healing and the principles of

therapy. Thereafter the chapters cover the different anatomical

areas of the upper limb with additional chapters on nerve,

sports and occupational overuse injuries. The flowwithin each

chapter is smooth and the layout is clearly stated in a detailed

contents page at the start of each chapter. The majority of

which open with an overview of functional anatomy moving

onto assessment techniques and a precise description of

pathologies and therapy for each named injury/condition.

There are clear illustrations, scans, photographs and diagrams

throughout, which supplement the written content well.

This book gives a sound grounding on assessment and

practical knowledge on many pathologies and principles of

treatment and therapy for most of the conditions of the

upper limb. The chapters on the hand and wrist provide

excellent background information on the various pathol-

ogies and injuries and their management—both conserva-

tive and surgical. The advice given on therapy is thorough

with guidelines regarding time scales and modalities

with therapeutic interventions described meticulously.

The highlights for me are the chapters on the wrist and

hand and the final chapter on occupational overuse

injuries—which made excellent use of a case study

illustrating the many challenges surrounding these pathol-

ogies. Other highlights are the ‘special tips’ sections which

many contributors included, drawing on their own clinical

experience and providing additional practical hands on

information for the reader. It is a very easy book to read and

the detail included in certain chapters is excellent. This in

itself is a good reason to recommend this publication to all

those treating and learning about upper limb conditions,

whatever their level of experience.

What could add to the publication is the expansion of the

sections covering the elbow, shoulder and sports injuries to

a similar level of detail to that found in the wrist and hand

chapters. The rehabilitation of the shoulder was a little

disappointing and could have had more information on

treatment techniques such as muscle imbalance. The

referencing of each section suggests a well researched

publication but there are one or two chapters of the book

where more recent literature could have been included.

Overall the editors and contributors should be congratu-

lated on compiling an excellent reference source for all those

interested in treating/learning about upper limb pathologies.

Therefore, this book should be included in all hospital and

university department libraries, and would have my

recommendation as a basic core reference for all students

of upper limb and in particular hand and wrist pathologies.

Clare Doyle,

PGCE Lecturer in Sports Therapy,

University of Kent, UK

Received 31 August 2005; Accepted 31 August 2005

doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2005.08.005

Nicola Maffulli and Dennis J. Caine, editors. Epidemiol-

ogy of Pediatric Sports Injuries: Team Sports, Medicine

and Sport Science, Volume 49 (2005), Karger, Basel, 195

pages, ISBN 3 8055 7869 5, ISSN 0254 5020

Volume 6, Number 3 of Physical Therapy in Sport

contained a review of a highly recommended book titled

Physical Therapy in Sport 7 (2006) 50–51

www.elsevier.com/locate/yptsp