Essay On Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder. It occurs when cartilage begins to break down or be worn away and the bone rubs together. As a result bony spurs and inflammation of the joint(s) occurs. Surrounding ligaments and muscles may also weaken or stiffen. Major risk factors are: genetics, excess weight, joint injuries, jobs that involve more than an hour of joint stressing activities like kneeling, and sports that involve direct impact on the joints, twisting, or throwing. Bleeding disorders, disorders that blood supply near joints, and other types of arthritis can cause osteoarthritis. Symptoms typically begin while one is middle aged and almost everyone shows some symptoms of OA by age 70. This is important to note because OA is seemingly inevitable for everybody. OA is not curable and typically gets worse with time, but the symptoms can be managed. Strength in weight bearing joints, the hip, the knee, and the ankle, is particularly important for prevention. Also important are not overusing joints and maintaining a normal body weight.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint disorder; knee is the joint that most frequently affected.1 During 1988 to 1994, among US adults, the prevalence of knee OA was 37.4%, and the prevalence was greater among women than men (42.1% vs 31.2%).2 Knee OA will impair lower extremity function, and influencing the quality of life. The most common complaints from the patients with knee OA are the pain, daily functional decline, joint deformity, and gait deviation3,4. Symptomatic OA knee patients have shown that significantly less knee angular velocity and knee range of motion during gait. The normal joint load line can be altered with possible varus angulation of the knee, eventually affecting

Osteoarthritis, or degenerative joint disease, is a form of arthritis characterized by the breakdown of cartilage within joints. Cartilage serves to provide cushion at the ends of bones, and when the cushion is not sufficient, as in osteoarthritis, the bones rub together. As a result, osteoarthritis sufferers are constantly plagued by stiff, swollen, and inflamed joints (http://www.arthritis.org/answers/diseasecenter/oa.asp). It is a relatively common condition, with an estimated 20 million American sufferers, most of whom are elderly (http://webmd.lycos.com/content/article/1668.50297). Traditional treatments include Tylenol, aspirin, or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic syndrome that is characterized by inflammation of the peripheral joints, but it may also involve the lungs, heart, blood vessels, and eyes. The prevalence of this autoimmune disease is between 0.3% to 1.5% of the population in the United States (Feinberg, pp 815). It affects women two to three times more often than men, and the onset of RA is usually between 25 and 50 years of age, but it can occur at any age (Reed, pp 584). RA can be diagnosed by establishing the presence of persistent joint pain, swelling in a symmetric distribution, and prolonged morning stiffness. RA usually affects multiple joints, such as the hands, wrists, knees, elbows, feet, shoulders, hips, and small

Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, is most prevalent in older patients. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative bone disease due to the gradual loss of cartilage. A primary type of osteoarthritis is hip arthritis where it is caused by joint injury, increasing age, and being overweight (“Hip Osteoarthritis,” n.d.). However, osteoarthritis can also be caused by immature joints, inherited defects in cartilage, and extra stress on a patient’s joints (Hip Osteoarthritis,” n.d.). As a result, hip arthritis becomes a huge detriment in patient’s social, emotional, physical lifestyles. In order to treat hip arthritis, doctors choose from a variety of non-drug treatments, medications, and surgeries. Uniquely, I was inspired to research about the treatments of hip arthritis because my very own brother was pronounced with hip arthritis a few years back. Therefore, his determination to battle this disease encouraged me to investigate about the treatment of hip arthritis.

As stated earlier, the patient admitting challenge was right total knee replacement related to history of osteoarthritis as evidenced by unrelieved pain. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease that “results from cartilage damage that triggers a metabolic response at the level of the chondrocytes” (Lewis, Dirksen, Heitkemper, Barry, Goldsworthy & Goodridge, 2011, p. 1881). As it progress, it causes the cartilage to become “dull, yellow, and granular” instead of being “smooth, white, translucent” (Lewis et al., 2011; Gulanick & Myers, 2014, p. 1881).As a result, it eventually becomes softer, less elastic, and less capable to resist wear during heavy use. Moreover, as the “central cartilage becomes thinner, cartilage and bony growth increases at the joint margins … that results to uneven distribution of stress across the joint” that contributes to a decrease in motion. (Lewis et al., 2011; Gulanick & Myers, 2014, p. 1882). According to this patient, OA has been giving her pain for about two years that lead her to the decision of having the knee replacement.

Disease/Disorder: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common, age-related inflammatory joint disease of the synovial joints. Its characteristics include local areas of loss and damage of articular cartilage, new bone formation of joint margins, subchondral bone changes, synovitis and thickening of the joint capsule. It is typically found in the hands, knees, hips, and spine. OA is often associated with wear and tear therefore symptoms improve with rest (Walker, 2011).

This study has a number of limitations. The respondents that took part in the study were not asked if they were familiar with any of the existing clinical practice guidelines for the management of knee OA or whether their choice of treatment was influenced by any of the existing clinical practice guidelines for knee OA. Particularly since most of these guidelines are accessible and are within the public domain. For instance, within the field of rheumatology, a number of clinical practice guidelines are in existence [2, 12-17] and most of these guidelines are continually been reviewed and updated in the light of new findings emerging from research on the effectiveness of various modalities and approaches to the management of knee OA. The evaluation

As people in the world live longer as a result of advances in medicine and technology, more and more people are suffering from osteoarthritis, especially in the knee. Osteoarthritis in the degeneration of cartilage, which causes chronic pain and disability. Today, around 10-15% of people over the age of 60 suffer from osteoarthritis, and by 2050, it is estimated that greater than 20 percent of the total world population will experience OA (Kong et al). Today’s there are a number of treatments, many of which have serious complications or do not fix the problem. Typically for severe cases of osteoarthritis, total knee replacement surgery is the accepted treatment, however as many as 20 percent of patients still experience pain or other complications post-surgery (Freitag et al). The use of regenerative methods such as the use of mesenchymal stem cells could provide an better alternative to this procedure. Mesenchymal stem cells are found in bone marrow as well as other sources such as umbilical cord blood, adipose tissue, and muscle, and are multipotent, meaning they can differentiate into multiple tissues including cartilage, bone, and fat. Mesenchymal stem cell therapy is the future in treating osteoarthritis in the knee because it produces real cartilage, effectively reduces pain and is safe.

More than 20 million people in the US and over 100 million people worldwide suffer from knee osteoarthritis. It is one of the most common causes of disability among older adults. The effects of knee osteoarthritis include severe joint pain and reduced bodily motion. In other words, it makes doing everyday physical activities such as kneeling, sitting, and walking up stairs extremely difficult.

The symptoms of osteoarthritis are usually very slow to manifest worsen over time. Symptoms include joint pain, tenderness in joints, joint stiffness, loss of flexibility, a grating sound in the joints and hard lumps around the joints. Though the symptoms can be present in any joint, it’s usually more evident in the affected person’s joints in their knees, hands, hips and spinal column. People at risk are again older people especially women, obese people, those who have had joint injuries, people employed in manual labor jobs, and certain diseases such as diabetes, gout and rheumatoid arthritis where the side effect is osteoporosis. As in osteoporosis, there is no cure for osteoarthritis and the symptoms just keep worsening in patients, but it can be prevented and / or the slow the progression of the disease by staying active and by staying in good physical shape, maintaining body weight. This also help them improve pain and joint

Osteoarthritis knee is the common form of arthritis; it causes degeneration of knee joints. It develops when cartilage, the lining of joints that allows smooth movement between opposing bones, starts to break down, especially in the elderly. Swelling and inflammation in the affected knee joint are a major cause of pain and disability.

Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder, and more than half of all Americans who are older than 65 have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis. However, recent US data has revealed knee osteoarthritis does not discriminate age, and there is growing evidence that osteoarthritis affects individuals at a young age. The annual cost of osteoarthritis due to treatment and loss of productivity in the US is estimated to be more than 65 billion dollars.1 With no cure currently available for osteoarthritis, current treatments focus on management of symptoms. The primary goals of therapy include improved joint function, pain relief, and increased joint stability. Although the exact cause of osteoarthritis is unknown, many risk factors have been identified including increased age, female gender, obesity, and trauma.2 Within these risk factors, the etiology of osteoarthritis has been divided into anatomy, body mass, and gender.

OA is a musculoskeletal disease that causes chronic joint pain and reduced physical functioning (Laba, brien, Fransen, & jan, 2013). Osteoarthritis (OA) is a non-inflammatory disorder of synovial joints that results in loss of hyaline cartilage and remodeling of surrounding bone. OA is the single most common joint disease, with an estimated prevalence of 60% in men and 70% in women later in life after the age of 65 years, affecting an estimated 40 million people in the United States (Goodman & Fuller, 2009). Women are more commonly affected after the age of 55, almost everyone has some symptoms by the age of 70 (Tan, Zahara, Colburn & Hawkins, 2013, p.78). Osteoarthritis can be described radiological, clinical, or subjective.

In the United States, arthritis has become the second most common disorder, in the past years. Moreover, the condition affects more than 34 million Caucasians, 4.6 million African-Americans and nearly 3.1 million Hispanics with women being the most affected (Helmick, 2008). 28.3% of people suffering from arthritis are women whereas 18.2% are men (Helmick, 2008). By the year 2030, it is predicted that the number of patients with arthritis will double if prevalence rates remain the same. Apart from being cost-intensive, Osteoarthritis (OA) affects nearly twenty seven million Americans, which effectively limits their work (Reid, Shengelia & Parker, 2012). The statistics show that Caucasians are the most affected and the Hispanics to be the less affected from Caucasians, Hispanics, and African Americans. It also shows how women also have greater possibilities of getting arthritis than man ever did.