Interesting link on hypermobile hands

This blog article popped into my Google Alerts today: They should do all assistive technology this way.

It’s interesting because the photos of the girl’s hands are remarkably familiar, particularly the way she holds a pen without her ring splints. I’ve always been used to my hands aching after writing for a while and nearly seizing up when doing exams, but it hadn’t occurred to me until recently that my entire writing grip is odd. Holding a pen steady when your fingers bend backwards under any pressure is not easy unless you hold the pen ridiculously tightly.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve taken to using a fountain pen when doing any extended writing. It’s impossible to press hard on the page without bending the nib badly and that seems to be educating me to use a slightly better grip, but it’s not perfect. I don’t think that I’m going down the ring splint route, but looking at the way my fingers bend on the pen does start to make sense of my illegible handwriting and the stiffness that my hands quickly aquire.

Unfortunately, I’ve  noticed that my hands are doing the same where I knit. I use the index finger on my left hand to steady the needles and it’s either bending backwards or locking into a semi-bent position most of the time, which is making that finger a bit sorer than usual. Maybe I need to look into doing something about that finger, even if it’s just when I’m knitting?

Ah, the joys of having a wacky body!