All you need to know about arthrosis - its causes, signs, varieties and diagnostic methods - will help the disease at an early stage. And effective treatment methods will allow you to get rid of this disease. Arthrosis is characteristic of people over 40 years of age. However, impartial statistics in recent decades have shown that rejuvenation men and 30-35 year old women have begun to suffer.
What is arthrosis?
Arthrosis is a chronic joint disease accompanied by abnormal changes in hyaline cartilage and subsequently in the surrounding tissues, joint capsule and synovial vessel. Defeat is by dystrophic and degenerative nature, which causes changes in the structure of the articular tissue, loss of their functioning. According to 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, people aged 60 years old. Another 30-35% of cases of joint injury to this pathology are in patients aged 40-60 years. And about 3% of young people are 20-40 years old.
The danger of joint disease is evident in the fact that it is practically not completely cured. Despite the early stage of progression when diagnosing pathology, it helps maintain the functioning of the joint.
Most often, cases of arthrosis of arthrosis in such joints are diagnosed:
- Carpal joints;
- Cervical and lumbar spine;
- Knee joint;
- Thigh joint;
- Shoulder joint;
- Ankle joint;
- Metatarsophalangal joint.
The disease is more characteristic of the female population - representatives of the female half of the population often experience this pathology in the age of age. Interfalance joint arthrosis occurs 10 times more often in women than in men.
The estimated consequences of arthrosis
With timely treatment, the disease is manifested by less intensity and, as a result, stopping degenerative and dystrophic changes. This means that timely surgical or therapeutic intervention allows you to maintain the functioning of the joint, normal walking and eliminates pain.
At the same time, tightening of treatment causes frequent and stable pains, lightness, swelling of the joint. Progressive abnormal changes in tissues deprive the joint its usual functioning. In a short time, in the absence of competent treatment, arthrosis rapidly flows into chronic form. Such results lead to the need for constant medical observation and regular treatment of the disease during exacerbation.
In order to avoid the results and complications of its first development doubts, you need to contact medical specialists. In the early stages of progression of the treatment of joint arthrosis, the rheumatologist is treated. In chronic form, this pathology is treated by an orthopedic traumatologist.
Types of arthrosis
This pathology of the joints has several forms and varieties that differ in such criteria:
- Causes (primary and secondary form);
- Arthrosis stages (three stages of progression are classified);
- Localization of pathology (place of manifestation of the disease and type of joint);
- Localization form (generalized and local form);
- The course of the disease (acute or chronic).
At the site of the manifestation of symptoms, the knee, cystic, elbow, shoulder, ankle, cervical arthrosis are distinguished.
According to the etiological signs, primary pathologies are classified, developing in itself without any preconditions and secondary disease. In the latter case, joint damage occurs due to the development of infectious diseases in the surrounding tissues, mechanical disorders, loss of physiological functioning of the joint, as well as progressive inflammatory process, hypothermia, injury or other factors.
The classification in the form of localization involves local and generalized damage to the joints. In the first case, the disease and its symptoms include a small portion of the joint or its individual tissues and components. In a generalized form, several joints are affected or one of them with complete covering of all joint tissue.
At different stages of disease progression, different degrees of intensity are manifested. At the same time, the symptoms and complications can manifest the process of a clearer, more or less dynamically leakage of tissue destruction process and decrease in joint functioning.
Depending on the course of arthrosis, they distinguish:
- Acute form;
- Chronic form.
The acute form is usually manifested by the development of symptoms and increased their severity. Painful sensations appear more strongly, and morphological changes in the tissues are more dynamically. In a chronic form, the course of the disease is slowly becoming, it is manifested by certain signs of exacerbation and is virtually unable to heal.
The degree of disease
During the disease, medicine distinguishes in three stages, which have differences in the signs of the disease, the intensity of the injury and the localization. At the same time, in all three stages, distinguishing the types of tissues that experience abnormal changes.
- The first degree of development of joint arthrosis is the initial stage of the disease. It is characterized by slight damage to cartilage tissue and loss of physiological functions in collagen fibers. At the same time, in the first stage there are minor morphological disorders of the bone tissue and structural changes in synovial fluid. The joint cartilage is covered with cracks, the patient has minor pain at the site of the localization of the pathology.
- The second degree is the development of arthrosis with the increase in dynamics. At this point, the appearance of stable pain, chromium is characterized. Certillary morphological and dystrophic cartridges are observed, with an increase in bones at the time of diagnosis. Osteophytes are formed - the growth of bones that are visible during the visual examination of the place of destruction. At the same time, the processes of degenerative changes in the synovial capsule occur, which causes its structural decline. In this phase, the disease can often be exacerbated and regular. The pain gradually becomes permanent.
- The third degree is active progress. At this point, synovial fluid is almost absent due to its degeneration, and bone tissues are sharply to each other. Joint mobility is almost absent, the pain becomes more tangible. Certillary tissue also does not exist due to degenerative and atrophic changes. Third degree treatment of joint arthrosis is considered impractical.
In addition to these three degrees of pathology development, there is the final stage - the irreversible destruction of all joint tissue. At this point, it is not only possible to perform productive therapy, but also to remove pain syndrome.
The inflammatory process usually begins with second -degree injury, in rare cases, in the absence of medical intervention - in the first stage. Subsequently, it becomes more difficult to stop and this can lead to secondary pathologies, the development of pathogenic microflora at the site of disease localization.
In order to exclude serious consequences, treatment should be started from the first degree and the use of intensive therapy methods. At the last stage, related to complete destruction of cartilage tissue, only one methodology is permitted to exit the patient's pain and joint immobility - endoprosthetics 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 difficult manifestation exacerbates the course of arthrosis and reduces the dynamics of recovery.
The main cause of most types of this pathology is the disruption of metabolism. Changing metabolic processes causes morphological disorders of the cartilage and synovial fluid. As a result, changes relate to the entire joint and are often accompanied by the emergence of inflammatory local focus.
In addition to metabolic pathologies, the causes of joint arthrosis are:
- Traumatic damage to individual tissues or the whole joint. These include dislocations, fractures, ligaments, pelvic decomposition, wound penetration. This is more common in people involved in sports, or whose activities are associated with dangerous working conditions and physical effort;
- The inflammatory process is a factor that often acts as a secondary cause. Inflammation usually develops in patients suffering from gut, psoriasis, rheumatic disorders, autoimmune pathologies. The joints of the joints are exposed to patients with exacerbation of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, chlamydia, staphylococcus and other communicable diseases;
- The effects of aggravating form of respiratory diseases - influenza, acute respiratory viral infections, acute respiratory infections;
- Patient body weight gain - with disproportionate load on their tissues, with constant mechanical effects that cause morphological deviations and the destruction of the cartilage structure;
- Excessive hypothermia, which results in the destruction of the integrity of the cartilage tissue and the loss of synovial fluid structure;
- Thyroid diseases.
A separate place in the etiology of arthrosis is a genetic factor. It is a genetic anomaly that can provoke dysplasia of joint tissue and disrupt the physiological functions of collagen fibers responsible for joint flexibility and mobility.
At the same time, other concomitant factors are the causes of this pathology: vitamin deficiency, intoxication due to the quality of administration of products or overdose, advanced age of the patient, abnormal blood flow and blood flow, hormonal pathologies, and diseases of the reproductive system of infectious origin.
The mechanism of progression of the disease
When there is any cause that causes joint disease with arthrosis, the pathological processes begin to develop. Their progression mechanism has not been fully studied, but the main stages of official medicine are known.
Initially, the structure of the cartilage tissue and abnormal changes in the synovial fluid occur. All this is due to disruption of metabolic processes that the joint tissues do not receive the necessary components in sufficient quantities, or deprived of some of them.
Then, the elasticity of the collagen fibers and the flexibility of the cartilage are lost, because of the lack of nutrients in the body, hyaluronic acid does not have time to generate the softness and flexibility of the collagen fibers. The cartilage gradually dries, becoming fragile and cracks. In the synovial capsule, the liquid gradually dissolves and then disappears completely.
Cartial tissue, roughness, solid bone neoplasms are formed. At the same time, deformity of other joint tissues, their abnormal degeneration, dystrophy and loss of physiological action develop.
For the patient, these changes mean joint pain, lightness and immobility.
Symptoms of arthrosis
Signs of joint arthrosis appear to its first degree, though sometimes they are not expressed. The events characteristic of all stages of arthrosis are:
- Pain syndrome;
- Crushed sounds during movement;
- Inaction or complete reduction of joint mobility;
- Swelling;
- Configuration of the joint.
Pain
Pain usually occurs during movement. With intense physical effort, the painful sensations are intense and acquire a constant tendency. With all kinds of arthrosis, any location of their localization, the pain is sharp.
In the early stages, the pain is weakly expressed, more often they appear in the daytime. Usually, the pain is short -lived and decreases during rest. In chronic form and intense progression of pain, pain syndrome is more common, has an increased manifestation period, often even worried about it today.