We recommend that adults and children over 12 wear face masks when attending our clinic, but no longer provide masks to patients and carers. Videoconsultations are conducted via telehealth at our dedicated virtual clinic. We are experiencing high demand for appointments hence require that all patients provide a referral prior to booking an appointment so that we can identify and manage urgent and emergency conditions in a timely manner, and so that our surgeons can assess your suitability for a telehealth appointment and identify any further information or tests that might be required before your consultation. If our surgeons assess that your condition (especially recent injuries) is best managed with hand therapy rather than surgery we may recommend that you see a qualified hand therapist (physiotherapist or occupational therapist) rather than schedule an appointment with our surgeons. Dr Tomlinson does not offer consultations and surgical services where a Medicare Rebatable Item Code does not apply; this includes injections for palmar hyperhidrosis. Dr Tomlinson has scheduled sabbatical leave during much of October, November and December 2023 so will not be available for urgent or emergency referrals during that time.

Hand and wrist arthritis

Created 06 January 2013, last modified 08 January 2015

Dr Jill Tomlinson offers a full range of hand and wrist surgery services. In the management of arthritis this includes treating:

Arthritis after injury (termed "post traumatic arthritis")
Inflammatory arthritis
Osteoarthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (read about rheumatoid arthritis medications and surgery here)

Treatments can include non-surgical management (including corticosteroid injections) as well as surgical treatments such as:

Joint fusion (called "arthrodesis")
Joint replacement (also called "joint arthroplasty")
Removal of bones (such as "trapeziectomy", and "proximal row carpectomy" procedures)
Tendon interposition and realignment ("suspension arthroplasty")
Wrist arthroscopy (looking inside the wrist joints with a small telescope)

elderly hands

If you're looking for information about specific joints of the hand or wrist, try these pages:

Basal joint arthritis (= arthritis affecting the base of thumb, in the 1st carpometacarpophalangeal joint)
Distal interphalangeal joint arthritis
Partial wrist fusion
Proximal interphalangeal joint arthritis
Total wrist fusion

We appreciate that the anatomical terms and medical words are confusing. The following image may help you sort out which is which:

jointexplanation

And if you're still not sure, please be sure to ask your surgeon!

If you cannot find the information that you are searching for please use the "search" function on this website - with so many different categories of hand conditions the search box may be the best way to find what you are looking for! If we don't have information on what you are interested in please let us know, so we can develop new content that will assist you and future visitors.

Tweets by @MelbHandSurg

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