What is arthrosis?

Unfortunately, many people, and not only the elderly, know what is arthrosis. The disease has significantly grown younger over the past decades, increasingly affecting 30-40-year-olds. Almost everyone, whose age has exceeded the sixty-year boundary, complains of problems with joints. It is believed that women suffer from arthrosis more often than men, but in the elderly this difference is minimal. This ailment is one of the most frequent causes of disability and disability.

So, what is arthrosis? This is a very common joint disease. They suffer about 15% of the world's population. Arthrosis is known since ancient times, as evidenced by the study of the fossil remains of people who lived in the Stone Age.

Osteoarthritis is the deterioration and destruction of joints and adjacent tissues: cartilage, articular bone structures, ligaments. In addition, there are growths on the surface of bone tissue, which are already secondary changes in the joint. The disease is chronic, and if it has appeared, it will only progress, and all new joints will begin to be involved in the process. Osteoarthritis often affects the joints, which account for the main burden in life: knee, hip, shoulder, spine, toe and hand joints. The disease can affect one or symmetrical joints, or several at once. The most common types of disease are gonarthrosis (knee injury) and coxarthrosis (hip area).

With age, the body naturally wears out all systems and tissues, including articular cartilage. But in the normal case, the process of destruction and synthesis is balanced, and with arthrosis, its active degeneration occurs. Therefore, arthrosis can be characterized as premature wear of the articular cartilage. To date, the causes of the onset and development of the disease are not fully understood.

What is arthrosis of the joints, and what are its signs? The onset of the disease is rarely accompanied by any symptoms. For arthrosis is characterized by pain during the load, which subsides at rest, a crunch in the joint, a restriction of mobility, deformation.

Osteoarthritis should not be confused with arthritis, although both diseases affect the joint. The first case is a chronic dystrophic change in cartilage that is not inflammatory. Arthritis has an inflammatory nature. At the same time the joint area swells and becomes hot, redness appears, pain is present even at rest. With arthritis, the feeling of discomfort is acute and jerking.

What is arthrosis and what are the causes of its appearance? The sources of degenerative changes in the joint are not completely clear, but the fact that older age is one of the risk factors does not cause doubts. But this does not mean that the disease will certainly appear in old age.

One of the main reasons for the development of the disease is the aging of the chondrocytes, of which the cartilaginous tissue consists. With age, there is a gradual decrease or erasure of the cartilaginous tissue, as a result of which pain appears when moving. This process can be the result of physical activities associated with sports and a number of professions. Osteoarthritis can develop as a result of injuries and in post-traumatic conditions.

The disease often develops on the background of hormonal changes, for example, when menopause occurs.

Most susceptible to arthrosis, especially knee joints, people with excess weight. This is due to overloads on them and the peculiarity of metabolic processes in people with a large body weight.

The disease can develop against a background of endocrine disorders, such as thyroid disease and diabetes mellitus.

Not the last role in the development of the disease is played by genetic predisposition.

What is arthrosis and how to treat it? I must say, you can not completely eliminate the disease. With timely measures taken and adequate treatment, you can suspend the process and ease the state. Today, new effective methods of treating arthrosis have been developed. Along with medications, ultrasound and microwave therapy, physiotherapy, barotherapy, and applications of heat carriers are widely used.