Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, currently affects more than 32 million adults in the U.S. In fact, as many as 80% of Americans over the age of 55 are living with some form of the condition. While there is no cure for osteoarthritis, the condition can be managed if properly diagnosed and treated. Speak with a Bayhealth orthopedic expert about osteoarthritis.
What is Osteoarthritis?
A degenerative joint disease which has been referred to as “wear and tear arthritis,” osteoarthritis occurs when the cartilage that protects your joints gradually degrades. As the cartilage wears away, the bones of your joints touch and grate together during normal movement, which can cause stiffness, inflammation and discomfort. If left untreated, osteoarthritis may worsen over time and limit your ability to perform daily tasks.
While osteoarthritis can develop in any joint in your body, the condition most commonly occurs in the hands, knees, hips, lower back and neck.
Signs and Symptoms
More than half of osteoarthritis cases involve noticeable symptoms.
Those symptoms include the following.
- Pain: Because the condition causes the cartilage in your joints to wear away and your bones to rub together, pain is the most common symptom of osteoarthritis. The affected area could hurt at different times, even during periods of rest.
- Stiffness: Osteoarthritis may cause stiffness in your joints following periods of inactivity. The condition may also contribute to a loss of flexibility in the affected area, limiting your joint’s full range of motion.
- Joint Deformity: Osteoarthritis often causes physical changes to the affected area, including bone spurs, which look and feel like hard lumps around your joint. General swelling also occurs as the soft tissue around the area becomes inflamed.
- Audible Grating: There may be popping, clicking and cracking sounds whenever the joint affected by osteoarthritis bends and the bones rub together.
- Weakness: The strength of the affected joint and surrounding muscles could gradually decline. Osteoarthritis of the knees may contribute to issues balancing and walking.
If not properly treated, severe cases of osteoarthritis can be disabling. Speak with a Bayhealth orthopedic expert about diagnosing and managing osteoarthritis.
Risk Factors
Although it most often occurs in the hands, feet, knees, hips and spine, osteoarthritis can affect any joint in the body. And while the condition can develop in anyone, certain factors may increase the risk of developing osteoarthritis. Those factors include the following.
- Advanced Age: Osteoarthritis most commonly develops in individuals 50 years and older, although the condition is not purely an “aging disease,” as it’s been known in the past. People can develop osteoarthritis at any age, while some never develop it.
- Bone Deformity: People born with bone or cartilage abnormalities may develop osteoarthritis later in life.
- Family History: A history of osteoarthritis in your family could increase the likelihood that you will develop the condition.
- Gender: For unclear reasons, osteoarthritis occurs more often in women.
- Injury: Sustaining an injury to or around a joint, such as during a sports-related accident, could increase the risk of developing osteoarthritis at some point in your life.
- Obesity: A high body weight can increase the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the weight-bearing areas of the body, such as the hips and knees. Fat tissues are also known to produce proteins that cause inflammation around your joints.
- Prior Illness: A history of other joint-related conditions may increase the risk of developing osteoarthritis at some point. Those conditions include Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, joint hypermobility syndrome, gout and rheumatoid arthritis.
How We Diagnose Osteoarthritis
Our orthopedic experts use the following procedures to diagnose osteoarthritis.
- Blood Work: A blood test may reveal signs of osteoarthritis as well as rule out other conditions that could cause joint pain.
- Joint Fluid Analysis: Our experts draw fluid from the affected joint and test it for inflammation. This can also rule out other conditions, such as gout or infection.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): A combination of a magnetic field and radio waves creates three-dimensional images of specific areas of your body.
- X-Ray: A common medical imaging procedure, X-rays use radiation to capture colorless images of your bones, joints and soft tissue.
Treatment Options
Although there is no cure for osteoarthritis, there are several treatment options available to help manage pain and keep you active. For mild cases, over-the-counter pain relievers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) could be enough to mitigate pain of osteoarthritis. Depending on where the condition is occurring, severe cases may require surgical intervention, including joint replacement surgery.