Paige, this site has a prayer sign, related to the hands: www.chiro.org/places/RC_SCHAFER/mono-18.htm "Wartenberg's (Oriental Prayer) Sign. The patient is instructed to spread the hands out so that the palms face downward (the fingers are extended and the thumbs are adducted) then to raise the hands toward the face so that the palms appose. If the index fingers touch but the thumbs do not meet, paralysis of the abductor pollicis brevis is likely."
This is a chiropractic site, and Wheeless and others relate Wartenberg sign to little finger problems and ulnar nerve problems, so I am not sure, but I do think I have heard of a prayer sign before.
Later: A little further Google research turns up another "prayer sign" also called Reverse Phalen Sign (with the wrists in sharp extension, as with the hands together in prayer), as a median nerve sign.
So it sounds as if there is a bit of confusion about it.
[This message has been edited by AnnR (edited 02-28-2001).]
