My Pt man said that Heat, and cold are both usefull, with exersizes . When I went to PT, the first thing he would do is put my hand in a machine with heat, and what was flying around in the machine felt like sand, but was corn dust. As I was in the machine, and the heat was on, and the corn dust flying around my hand, he just said " for ten min. just keep making a fist and the dust will gather in your hand" I would do that for ten min. and then, when I brought my hand out after that time limit, it felt like I had nothing wrong. Then, he took me to a table and made me do all kinds of exersizes and grips, and ultrasound..
The sheet he sent me home with to do things at home said " Moist heat, or , cold " Go figure. I use the moist heat. It works, before exersizing the hand.
Hope that helps.
Patty

I have Dupuytren's disease in both hands. I live in San Jose. I take yoga class at a Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury yoga teacher. They heat the room to 103 and we do all kinds of stretching. After I warm up my bent fingers got loose and they straightened out. You have to keep up with the stretching to keep them straight. So rather than cold, we use heat to help us stretch our fingers. It seems to work.

That did not go through right... 10 min. in High heat, and working the hand, and then, on to the stretching and gripping exersizes.
Patty