Everything you need to know about osteoarthritis (its causes, signs, varieties and diagnostic methods) will help detect ailment in the early stages. And effective treatment methods will allow you to get rid of this disease. Arthrosis is characteristic of people over 40. However, odd statistics show in recent decades a tendency to rejuvenate men and women from 30 to 35 years have begun to suffer.
What is osteoarthritis?
Arthosis is a chronic joint disease accompanied by pathological changes in hyaline cartilage, and later in adjacent tissues, an articular capsule and a synovial cover. The defeat is of a distributing and degenerative nature, which leads to a change in the structure of the joint tissues, the loss of their functionality. According to the data of the same statistics, osteoarthritis is subject to 12% of the total population of the planet. From 62% to 65% of all episodes of the disease fall on people over 60 years. Another 30-35% of cases of articular damage to this pathology are found in patients from 40 to 60 years. And about 3% have young people aged 20 to 40.
The danger of joint disease is manifested by the fact that it is practically not completely cured. Although by diagnosing the pathology in the early phase of progression, it helps preserve the functionality of the articulation.
Most of the time, cases of osteoarthritis lesion in such joints are diagnosed:
- Carpal joints;
- cervical and lumbar column;
- knee joint;
- Hip joint;
- shoulder joint;
- ankle joint;
- Metatarsophalangeal articulation.
The disease is more characteristic of the female population: representatives of the female half of the population suffer from this pathology more frequently at an advanced age. The osteoarthritis of the interface joint occurs in women 10 times more often than in the male population.
The probable consequences of osteoarthritis
With timely treatment, the disease is manifested for less intensity of development and, as a result, a stop of degenerative and distribution changes. This means that timely surgical or therapeutic intervention allows you to maintain the functionality of the joint, normal march and eliminate pain.
At the same time, the adjustment with the treatment leads to frequent and stable pains, limp, swelling of the joint. Progressive pathological changes in tissues deprive the articulation of their usual functionality. In a short time, in the absence of competent treatment, osteoarthritis flows rapidly to a chronic form. Such consequences give rise to the need for constant medical observation and regular treatment of the disease during periods of exacerbation.
To avoid the consequences and complications with the first suspicions of its development, you must communicate with medical specialists. In the early phases of progression of the treatment of arthrosis of the joints, a rheumatologist is involved in the treatment. Chronic, the treatment of this pathology is performed by an orthopedic traumatologist.
Types of osteoarthritis
This articulation pathology has several forms and varieties that differ in such criteria:
- causes (primary and secondary form);
- stages of osteoarthritis (three stages of progression are classified);
- Pathology location (place of manifestation of the disease and type of articulation);
- Location form (generalized and local form);
- The course of the disease (acute or chronic).
In the place of the manifestation of symptoms, the hip, knee, cystic, elbow, shoulder, ankle, cervical osteosis are distinguished.
According to etiological signs, the pathologies of primary nature are classified, developing in themselves without prior requirements and a secondary disease. In the last case, the damage to the articulation occurs due to the development of infectious diseases in adjacent tissues, mechanical disorders, the loss of the physiological functionality of the joint, as well as as a result of a progressive inflammatory process, hypothermia, injuries or other factors.
Location classification implies local and generalized damage to the joints. In the first case, the disease and its symptoms cover a small part of the joint or its individual tissues and the components. With a generalized form, several joints are affected or one of them with total coverage of all joints of the joints.
In different stages of the progression of the disease, a variable degree of intensity is manifested. At the same time, symptoms and complications can be expressed brighter, with greater or less dynamically the process of destruction of fabric and deteriorated joint functionality.
Depending on the course of osteoarthritis, they distinguish:
- acute form;
- Chronic form.
The acute form is generally manifested by a greater intensity of the development of symptoms and their severity. Painful sensations appear more strongly, and morphological changes in the tissues proceed more dynamically. In a chronic way, the course of the disease is slowly, manifests itself for separate signs during periods of exacerbation and is practically not subject to cure.
Degree of disease
During the disease, medicine distinguishes three stages that have differences in the signs of the disease, the intensity of damage and location. At the same time, the distinction in the three stages is related to the types of fabrics that undergo pathological changes.
- The first degree of development of arthrosis of the joints is the initial phase of the disease. It is characterized by a slight cartilage tissue injury and the loss of physiological functions in collagen fibers. At the same time, in the first stage, minor morphological disorders of bone tissue and structural changes are observed in the synovial fluid. The articulation cartilage is covered with cracks, the patient has a slight pain in the place of location of the pathology.
- The second degree is the development of osteoarthritis with an increase in dynamics. This stage is characterized by the appearance of stable pain, chroma. Notable morphological and distribution cartridges of the cartilage are observed during diagnosis, bone growths are revealed. Osteophytes are formed: bone growth that are visible during a visual examination of the site of destruction. At the same time, the processes of degenerative changes in the synovial capsule are produced, which leads to its structural exhaustion. The disease in this phase can often aggravate and be regular. The pain gradually becomes constant.
- The third degree is active progression. At this stage, synovial fluid is almost completely absent due to its degeneration, and abrupt bone tissues. Joint mobility is almost completely absent, pain becomes more tangible. The cartilage tissue is also absent due to degenerative and atrophic changes. The treatment of the third degree of arthrosis of the joints is considered unchantly.
In addition to these three degrees of pathology, there is a final stage: the irrevocable destruction of all joint tissues. In this phase, it is impossible not only to perform a productive therapy, but even eliminate pain syndrome.
The inflammatory process generally begins with a second degree of damage, in rare cases, in the absence of medical intervention, in the first stage. Subsequently, it becomes more difficult to stop it, and this can lead to secondary pathologies, the development of pathogenic microflora instead of location of the disease.
To exclude serious consequences, the treatment must begin from the first grade and the use of intensive care methods. In the last stage associated with the complete destruction of the cartilage tissue, only a methodology to lead the patient from the pain and immobility of the articulation is allowed: endoprotetics with complete or partial replacement of the joint components.
Causes of the disease
The reasons can be primary and secondary factors. In the elderly, the disease can occur with mixed etiology, that is, in the presence of primary and secondary causes. Its complex manifestation exacerbates the course of osteoarthritis and reduces the dynamics of recovery.
The main cause of most types of this pathology is a violation of metabolism. Changed metabolic processes lead to morphological abnormalities in cartilage and synovial fluid. As a result, the changes are related to the entire articulation, and are often accompanied by the origin of the inflammatory local foci.
In addition to metabolic pathologies, the causes of articulations osteoarthritis are:
- Traumatic damage to individual tissues or the entire joint. This includes dislocations, fractures, ligaments, meniscus ruptures, penetrating wounds. This reason is more common in people involved in sports, or whose activities are related to dangerous working conditions and physical effort;
- An inflammatory process is a factor often acts as a secondary reason. Inflammation usually develops in patients suffering from gout, psoriasis, rheumatic anomalies, autoimmune pathologies. The joints of the joint are subject to patients in the exacerbation stage of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, clamidia, staphylococcus and other contagious diseases;
- The consequences of the aggravated form of respiratory diseases: flu, acute respiratory viral infections, acute respiratory infections;
- The patient's body weight gain, with a disproportionate load in the joints of their tissues, suffer constant mechanical effects, which leads to morphological deviations and the destruction of the cartilage structure;
- Excessive hypothermia that leads to the destruction of the integrity of the cartilage tissue and the loss of the structure of the synovial fluid;
- Thyroid diseases.
A separate place in the etiology of osteoarthritis is a genetic factor. It is genetic anomaly that can cause dysplasia of joint tissues and the disorder of the physiological functions of collagen fibers, responsible for the flexibility and mobility of the joints.
At the same time, other concomitant factors are the reasons for the development of this pathology: vitamin deficiency, poisoning due to admission quality products or excessive medication overdose, the patient's advanced age, the pathological processes of blood flow and blood flow, hormonal abnormalities and diseases of the reproductive system of infectious origin.
THE MECHANISM OF PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE
When some of the causes that cause the articulation disease with osteoarthritis, the pathological processes begin to develop in it appears. The mechanism of its progression is not completely studied, but the main stages of official medicine are known.
In the initial stage, the structure of the cartilage tissue and abnormal changes in the synovial fluid are produced. All this is due to violations of metabolic processes in which joint tissues do not receive the necessary components in sufficient quantities, or are deprived of some of them.
Next, the elasticity of the collagen fibers and the flexibility of the cartilage are lost, due to the fact that in the body, with the lack of nutrients, the hyaluronic acid does not have time to occur, which provides the softness and flexibility of the structural composition of the collagenic fiber. The cartilage dries gradually, becomes fragile and cracks. The liquid in the synovial capsule is gradually exhausted and subsequently disappears completely.
In the cartilage fabric, roughness, solid bone neoplasms are formed. At the same time, the deformation of another joint tissue, its pathological degeneration, dystrophy and the loss of physiological activity are developed.
For the patient, these changes mean the appearance of pain, lameness and immobility of the joint.
Symptoms of osteoarthritis
The signs of osteoarthritis of the joints appear from their first degree, although sometimes they are not so pronounced. The characteristic phenomena for all stages of osteoarthritis are:
- pain syndrome;
- crispy sounds when moving;
- inactivity or complete decrease in joint mobility;
- swelling;
- Joint formation.
Pain
The pain usually occurs during movement. With intense physical effort, painful sensations intensify and acquire a persistent trend. With all kinds of osteoarthritis, anywhere in its location, pain is acute.
In the initial phase, the pain is expressed weakly, more often appear during the day. In general, pain is short -term and decreases at rest. In chronic and intensive progression of acute pain, pain syndrome manifests itself more frequently, has a greater period of manifestation, often bothers even at night.