Hand Therapy for Musicians by Dr. Aviva Wolff
Aviva works with individual musicians and musical groups to educate, prevent and manage performance related injuries. She uses a customized approach that is based on the player’s specific instrument and performance demands to promote healthy habits and avoid injury. She is available for individual consultations and group presentations.
““Helping musicians play without pain””
Aviva Wolff, EdD, OT, CHT is an occupational hand therapist, clinician and researcher with a particular focus in musician’s injury and rehabilitation. She is certified by the Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). She most recently served as President of the American Society of Hand Therapy (ASHT).
She has a strong background in motor control and movement analysis with extensive experience working with a wide range of instrumentalists, performing artists and individuals with neuromuscular conditions and musculoskeletal injuries.
She currently consults for The Juilliard School, and runs the upper extremity clinical movement analysis programs and hand and wrist biomechanics research at the Leon Root, MD Motion Analysis Laboratory at Hospital for Special Surgery. She is also a member of the executive committee of the Weill Cornell Medicine Center for the Performing Arts. She is available for private consultations and educational presentations for musician health and wellness, musician related injury and injury prevention.
““I needed to heal to pursue a recording date...we set a 6-week goal and Aviva set forth a return to play schedule around week 5. I was able to record at the world famous Avatar studios with my band with Omar Hakim and Kurt Rosenwinkel which was a lifetime dream.””
Aviva’s clinical and research focus is based on the appreciation and understanding of the needs and abilities of the individual.
Her clinical work is focused on an individualized analysis of movement patterns and functional requirements of each patient.
When working with instrumentalists and athletes her focus is on the individual demands of the specific instrument or sport and the performance requirements.
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Aviva is a certified hand therapist and occupational therapist with 20 plus years of experience treating a wide range of upper extremity injuries and conditions. She specializes in the treatment and prevention of musician overuse injury and musician’s dystonia.
She has developed a clinical upper extremity motion analysis service to analyze functional movement and performance in athletes, musicians, and children and adults with movement disorders. Analyzed data is used to inform surgical and therapy decision making for improved functional performance.
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Aviva's research has focused on musician injury prevention and management, wrist biomechanics and function, elbow biomechanics and function, and hand and arm function in brachial plexus injury and cerebral palsy.
She has independently led and collaborated with orthopedic surgeons, physiatrists, sports medicine physicians, scientists, and biomechanists on several funded studies that have led to multiple presentations and publications.
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Speaker
Aviva has earned the reputation as a national and international lecturer on injury prevention in musicians, and upper extremity rehabilitation and related research.
Awards and achievements
Aviva has received multiple awards in recognition for her work in the hand therapy, hand surgery, and upper extremity biomechanics, including a recently awarded prestigious Vargas International Teaching Award, presented by the American Association for Hand Surgery in 2016.