Osteoarthritis is a chronic joint disease characterized by degeneration of cartilage and adjacent bone. The incidence of this pathology, which can cause pain and stiffness, will increase to become the fourth leading cause of disability in the world by 2020. In fact, specialists say that osteoarthritis affects more than 7 million Spaniards.
Although osteoarthritis is one of the effects of the progressive aging of the population, it does not only affect the elderly. In fact, 25% of Spaniards between 40 and 45 years of age suffer from osteoarthritis in any part of the body.
Causes of osteoarthritis
Some of the causes that are bringing forward the onset of this disease are obesity (due to mechanical and metabolic factors that damage the joints), accidents and the practice of professional sports. Although exercise is healthy, when it is done in excess and the body is put to the limit, it can end up taking its toll.
Osteoarthritis affects more women than men, and also diabetics. It is suspected that the reason for this gender inequality is estrogen, although it is not known for sure. What is known is that some types of osteoarthritis are related to metabolic alterations, such as high sugar and cholesterol levels or lipid metabolism, as in the obese.
Treatment of osteoarthritis
Although there is no definitive solution for osteoarthritis, there are treatments available that reduce its symptoms, delay the disease or improve patients’ quality of life.
Cartilage protectors are accumulating evidence of clinical and functional improvement.
In some indications they prevent disease progression or delay the need for surgery. The same can be said of viscosupplementation therapies, where the new hyaluronic acids seem to surpass the properties of those used up to now, or of autologous biological therapies (orthokine, platelet-rich plasma or stem cells). Although many studies show evidence of clinical improvements, more knowledge is still needed to know their real effect as modulators of the course of the disease, i.e. to know whether they slow down its progression, since regression of osteoarthritis does not seem real at the present time.
The operating room used to be the last option, but the increase in the number of patients with functional disability, increasingly younger, who no longer respond to pharmacological therapy and who wish to improve their quality of life, together with new surgical techniques and the improvement of prostheses, have changed the situation.
For example, if before it was unthinkable to put a prosthesis to a person of 50 years, or at the other extreme to one of 80 or 90 years, now we can select the most appropriate prosthesis for each case. Nowadays there is no age limit. The limit is set by pain and disability.
On the other hand, it is sometimes a challenge for orthopedic surgeons to give value to the limitation that each of the affected joints represents for the patient. But it is even more difficult to explain the limitation in order to know how much functional improvement a hip, knee or spine operation can bring to our patients.
The important thing, as always, is to detect the disease as early as possible, and to follow some advice:
- Maintain an adequate weight
- Do not self-medicate
- Have correct postural and work habits
- Exercise interspersed with rest
- Avoid overloading
- Keep active and adapt the exercise to our age group, do not try to force our organism at ages when certain efforts no longer correspond.