Everything you need to know about arthrosis - its causes, characters, varieties and diagnostic methods - will help discover the suffering in the early stages. And effective treatment methods allow you to get rid of this disease. Osteoarthritis is characteristic of people over 40 years old. However, in recent decades, impartial statistics show a tendency to rejuvenate men and women aged 30-35 have begun to suffer.
What is Arthrosis?
Osteoarthritis is a chronic joint disease accompanied by pathological changes in hyaline cartilage and then in adjacent tissues, a joint capsule and a synovial shell. The defeat is dystrophic and degenerate, leading to a change in the structure of articular tissue, the loss of their functionality. In accordance with the data on the same statistics, arthrosis 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 old. Another 30-35% of cases of joint injuries to this pathology are in patients aged 40-60 years. And approx. 3% are young people aged 20-40 years.
The danger of joint joints is manifested by the fact that it is practically not completely healed. Although, when diagnosing pathology in the early stage of progression, it helps maintain the functionality of the joint.
Most often, cases of lesion of arthrosis are diagnosed in such joints:
- Carpale LED;
- cervical and lumbar spine;
- knee joint;
- hip joint;
- shoulder joint;
- the ankle joint;
- Metatarsophalangeal LED.
The disease is more characteristic of the female population - representatives of the female half of the population suffer more often from this pathology at an older age. Arthrosis of the interface occurs in women 10 times more often than in the male population.
The probable consequences of arthrosis
With timely treatment, the disease is manifested by minor development intensity and as a result a stop of degenerative and dystrophic changes. This means that timely surgical or therapeutic intervention allows you to maintain the functionality of the joint, normal walk and eliminates tenderness.
At the same time, tightening with treatment leads to frequent and stable pain, lameness, swelling of the joint. Progressive pathological changes in the tissues deprive the joint of its usual functionality. In a short time, in the absence of competent treatment, arthrosis quickly flows into a chronic form. Such consequences give rise to the need for constant medical observation and regular treatment of the disease during deterioration periods.
To avoid consequences and complications with the first suspicions of its development, contact medical specialists. In the early stages of progression of the treatment of arthrosis of the joints, a rheumatologist is involved in the treatment. In chronic form, the treatment of this pathology is performed by an orthopedic traumatologist.
Types of arthrosis
This pathology of collections has several forms and varieties that differ in such criteria:
- Causes (primary and secondary form);
- Phases of arthosis (three stages of progression are classified);
- Localization of pathology (place for manifestation of the disease and the joint type);
- Localization form (generalized and local form);
- The course of the disease (acute or chronic).
At the site of manifestation of symptoms, hip, knee, cystic, elbow, shoulder, ankle, cervical arthrosis are separated.
According to etiological signs, pathologies of the primary nature are classified, developing in themselves without any prerequisites and a secondary disease. In the latter case, damage to the joint occurs due to the development of infectious diseases in adjacent tissues, mechanical disorders, the loss of physiological functionality in the joint and a result of a progressive inflammatory process, hypothermia, injury or other factors.
Classification in the form of location involves local and generalized damage to collections. 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 full coverage of all joint tissue.
At various stages of the development of the disease, a varying degree of intensity is manifested. At the same time, symptoms and complications can be expressed brighter, more or less dynamically delicious the process of destruction of substance and decreased common functionality.
Depending on the course of arthosis they distinguish:
- Acute form;
- Chronic form.
The acute form is usually manifested at increased intensity of the development of symptoms and their severity. Painful sensations occur stronger, and morphological changes in the tissues continue more dynamically. In a chronic form, it is slowly manifested, it is slowly manifested with separate signs during periods of deterioration and is practically not subject to cure.
Disease
During the disease, the medication separates three stages that have differences in the signs of the disease, the intensity of injury and location. At the same time, in all three stages of all three stages, it relates to the types of substances suffering from pathological changes.
- The first degree of development of arthosis of LED is the initial phase of the disease. It is characterized by a slight lesion of cartilage tissue and loss of physiological functions in collagen fibers. At the same time at the first step, minor morphological disorders are noted in the bone tissue and structural changes in the synovial fluid. The crime of the joint is covered with cracks, the patient has a slight pain at the site of localization of pathology.
- The second degree is the development of arthrosis with an increase in dynamics. This step is characterized by the appearance of steady pain, chroma. Remarkable morphological and dystrophic cartridges of cartilage are noted during the diagnosis that bone growth is revealed. Osteophytes are formed - bone growth that is visible during a visual examination of the destruction site. At the same time, the processes of degenerative changes in the synovial capsule occur, leading to its structural depletion. The disease in this phase can often worsen and be regular. The pain gradually becomes constant.
- The third degree is active progression. At this step, the synovial fluid is almost completely absent due to its degeneration, and bone tissue suddenly over each other. The common mobility is almost completely absent, the pain becomes more tangible. Cartilage tissue is also absent due to degenerative and atrophic changes. Treatment of the third degree of arthosis in the joints is considered impractical.
In addition to these three degrees of the development of pathology, there is a last phase - irrevocable destruction of all joint tissue. In this phase, it is impossible not only to perform productive therapy, but even to remove the pain syndrome.
The inflammatory process usually begins with a different degree of injury, in rare cases, in the absence of medical intervention - at the first step. Then it becomes more difficult to stop it, and this can lead to secondary pathologies, the development of pathogenic microflora instead of locating the disease.
To exclude serious consequences, treatment should begin from the first degree and the use of intensive care methods. At the last step associated with the complete destruction of cartilage tissue, it is only a method of riding the patient from pain and immobility in the joint - endoprotetics with complete or partial replacement of the joint components.
Causes of the disease
The causes may be primary and secondary factors. In older people, the disease can occur with mixed etiology, that is, in the presence of primary and secondary causes. Their complex manifestation aggravates the course of arthrosis and reduces the dynamics of improvement.
The main cause of most types of this pathology is a violation of metabolism. Changed metabolic processes lead to morphological abnormalities of cartilage and synovial fluid. As a result of this, the changes relate to the entire joint and are often accompanied by the origin of inflammatory local foci.
In addition to metabolic pathologies, the causes of arthropods are in the joints:
- Traumatic damage to individual tissue or the entire joint. This includes dislocations, fractures, ligaments, male breaking, penetrating wounds. This reason is more common in people involved in sports or whose activities are related to dangerous working conditions and physical exertion;
- An inflammatory process is a factor that often acts as a secondary reason. Inflammation usually develops in patients suffering from arthritis, psoriasis, rheumatic abnormalities, autoimmune pathologies. The joints of the joint are subject to patients at the stage of deterioration of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, chlamydia, staphylococcus and other infectious diseases;
- The consequences of the deteriorated form of respiratory disease - influenza, acute respiratory tract infections, acute respiratory tract infections;
- Increased body weight of the patient - with disproportionate strain on the joints of their tissues, constant mechanical effects suffer, leading to morphological deviations and the destruction of the cartilage structure;
- Excessive hypothermia leading to destruction of the integrity of the cartilage tissue and the loss of the structure of synovial fluid;
- Thyroid disease.
A separate place in the etiology of arthrosis is a genetic factor. It is the genetic anomaly capable of provoking dysplasia of joint tissue and the disturbance of the physiological functions of collagen fibers responsible for the flexibility and mobility of the joint.
At the same time, other contemporary factors are the reasons for the development of this pathology: vitamin deficiency, poisoning due to suction quality products or excessive overdose of drugs, the patient's advanced age, pathological processes of blood formation and blood flow, hormonal abnormalities and diseases of the reproductive system of infectious origin.
The mechanism of the development of the disease
When any of the causes provoking the disease in the joint with arthrosis appears, pathological processes begin to develop in it. The mechanism of their progression has not been fully examined, but the most important stages of official medicine are known.
At the initial step, the structure of the cartilage tissue and abnormal changes in the synovial fluid occur. All of this continues due to violations of metabolic processes where joint tissue does not receive the necessary components in sufficient quantities, or are deprived of some of them.
Next goes the elasticity of collagen fibers and the flexibility of cartilage lost due to the fact that in the body, with a lack of nutrients, hyaluronic acid does not have time to be produced, giving the softness and flexibility of the structural composition of the collagen fiber. Cartilage dries gradually, becomes crispy and cracking. The liquid in the synovial capsule is gradually depleted and then completely disappears.
On the cartilage, roughness is formed, solid bonesoplasms. At the same time, the deformation of other joint tissue, their pathological degeneration, dystrophy and loss of physiological activity develops.
For the patient, these changes mean the appearance of the collection of pain, limb and immobility.
Symptoms of arthrosis
Signs of arthosis of the joints appear from its first degree, although they are sometimes not so pronounced. Characteristic phenomena for all stages of arthosis are:
- pain syndrome;
- Crisp sounds when moving;
- inactivity or complete decrease in common mobility;
- swelling;
- Conformation of the joint.
Pain
Pain usually occurs during movement. With intense physical exertion, painful sensations intensify and get a lasting trend. With all types of arthosis, any place for their location, pain is sharp.
In the initial phase, pain is expressed slightly, more often they appear during the day. Usually the pain is short and subsides at rest. In chronic form and with intensive progression of the acute form of pain, the pain syndrome has manifested more often, an increased manifestation period, often bothering even at rest at night.