We all are familiar with the common joint disease, which is known as arthritis. Normally, weight-bearing joints are affected, in which knee and hip are most common. Approximately 27 million Americans are suffering from some sort of osteoarthritis. After age 50, women are likely to be more affected than men. About 21 % of obese and 31 % of overweight adults are recognized with arthritis in their lifespan.

How Osteoarthritis can influence your body performance:

Osteoarthritis influences can lessen your ability to perform everyday tasks and is the very common reason for dysfunctionality in adults. But sometimes, osteoarthritis does not need surgery every time, such as total knee replacement or hip replacement.

Professional osteoarthritis are the specialists who help the patients better understand this disease and its problems, provide treatments to improve movements, lessen pain, and educate you about bad habits, what’d you to obesity, and healthy choices that you can make to get better health. If you want to get rid of joint pain, you can contact a physical therapist directly to find a better treatment.

Studies have revealed that light to medium exercises like walking, swimming, and biking can help in weight loss and have more benefits for your joints. Research shows that the risk of osteoarthritis is reduced in the women studied by 11-pound weight loss.

What should you know about osteoarthritis?

The term refers to the most common type of arthritis. It is also committed to degenerative joint arthritis or joint tear disease. It usually happens in the hands, knees, and hips. Our bones are connected at joints. Cartilage is a rubbery, firm tissue that covers the bones at these joints.

Within the joint, a protective oily substance known as synovial fluid is also present to ease movement. When these protective coverings start to break down, and the bones start to change. The process itself can cause more damage to the cartilage and the bones. In some cases, it leads to reduced functionality and disability. Some people with osteoarthritis are disabled to do day-by-day tasks and work.

Risk factors of osteoarthritis:

Recent researches consider aging as the main cause of osteoarthritis. Some high-risk factors of osteoarthritis are:

• Past injury: People with prior injuries such as an accident or an injury that occurs when playing sports are at high risk of developing osteoarthritis
• Gender: Researches reveal that women are more likely at high risk to develop osteoarthritis than men
• Genetics: Studies show that some people’s bodies have difficulty in forming cartilage and synovial fluid.
• Occupation: Jobs such as childcare, construction, or landscaping that require repetitive squatting, twisting, and bending are risk factors for osteoarthritis.
• Sports: Athletes who frequently use a specific joint and places repetitive stress on a joint eventually develops osteoarthritis in that joint
• Bone deformation: Some people have malformed joints or defected cartilage by birth
• Certain metabolic diseases: Some of the major diseases like diabetes and hemochromatosis can head towards the risk of developing osteoarthritis
• Obesity: It is also referred to as being overweight and obese. In this manner, people are more likely at high risk for the advancement of osteoarthritis. If your lower joint has more weight, then there are chances you may experience joint stress issues in the hips and knees. Fat stored in tissues produces some proteins, which can cause swelling in and around the joints.

How do you respond when you notice osteoarthritis?

Some common symptoms include:

• Stiffness: Joint stiffness is noticed, especially in the morning after awakening or after working routine work
• Pain: During or after movement, the affected joint might hurt, which is relieved by rest.
• Swelling: it might be caused by the inflammation in soft tissues around the joint
• Joint noise: You may hear cracking, crunching, creaking, or other types of joint noise while moving them
• Loss of flexibility: Sometimes, the person might not be able to move your joint to its full motion range in the whole body.
• Bone spurs: Increased bone growth around the joints, which feels like hard lumps, can be experienced.

How is osteoarthritis diagnosed?

Usually, osteoarthritis is diagnosed by your doctor by an X-ray, but there are some signs which show that you have osteoarthritis. Common symptoms are joint stiffness; joint cracking, crunching, and creaking; difficulty moving, and pain that is relieved with rest.

The professional therapist typically uses the American Academy of Rheumatology criteria to determine knee osteoarthritis, which includes the pain with at least 3 of the five symptoms of the following criteria:

• Age >50 years
• Bone tenderness
• Bone enlargement
• Stiffness <30 minutes
• A grinding or crunching sound from the joint with movement which is known as Crepitus

How will physical therapists help patients to treat osteoarthritis?

There are many professional physical therapists available in-country that are highly skilled and trained in treating different forms of osteoarthritis. Physical therapy treatment is an attested treatment for osteoarthritis.

It may encourage you to evade surgery and the use of directed painkillers. The symptoms and development of osteoarthritis vary from person to person; addressing the risk factors that may cause osteoarthritis or initiating an individual exercise program can help you to slow the advanced conditions and to get relief from symptoms.

A physical therapist performs several things to examine the patient’s condition, which includes:

• Perform a detailed examination to find your symptoms
• Observes that in which activities you face difficulty to perform
• Design an individual exercise program to improve your movements
• Gives suggestions to adjust your workspace lessens the stress on your joints
• Recommend changes in your lifestyle to keep the weight off
• To improve your joint strength and movement, design a daily routine exercise program
• Use manual physical therapy techniques to improve the movement of affected joint
• If you require a weight loss program to reduce weight, design a safe weight loss plan for you

In severe cases of osteoarthritis, which cannot be treated by the physical therapist alone, surgeries like total joint displacement or knee or hip replacement may be necessary. Your family therapist will refer you to an expert orthopedist surgeon, with whom you can discuss all the possibilities of surgery to recover this issue.

Do you actually need a Physical Therapist?

All professional physical therapists are set up through education and training experience to treat the assortment of osteoarthritis regardless of the affected joint. You also need to study several things before hiring an expert physical therapist, which involves:

• Choose a physical therapist who is specialized in the treatment of osteoarthritis.
• Choose a physical therapist who has different certifications and authorities.
• A physical therapist should have enough and accurate healthcare information, experience, skills, and abilities that may apply to your condition.
• The physical therapist should perform under the American Physical Therapy Association.

Here are some general tips which you can consider while searching for a physical therapist for the treatment of your disease.

• Get proposals from family, companions, or other medical services, suppliers.
• When you contact an appointment, get some information about the physical therapist’s experience in assisting individuals who have osteoarthritis.
• During your first personal visit to the clinic, clearly tell about the symptoms that you feel so that the physical therapist can diagnose accurately your level of severity.

FAQs:

Are arthritis and osteoarthritis the same?

Osteoarthritis is the basic condition that is produced by the decay of the cartilage in the joints. On the other hand, arthritis is an inflammatory condition that leads to gradually destroy the structure of joints or bones.

What is the cause of osteoarthritis?

The basic cause of osteoarthritis is the breakdown of cartilage, a slippery material at the joints.

Does a person with osteoarthritis feel pain all the time?

In severe cases, complete cartilage loss produces friction between the joints, which causes pain.