Know More About Arthritis

Dear friends, I am Dr Shekhar Shrivastav. I am senior consultant orthopaedic at Sant Parmanand Hospital, Delhi. Today, we'll be discussing Arthritis and specifically arthritis of the knee joint.

Now people usually come and ask me what do you mean by arthritis. So arthritis is the inflammation of the joint. Joint is made up of two ends of the bone which are lined by an articular cartilage which helps in a smooth motion of the joint. So when that cartilage gets destroyed you get arthritis. Now it can get destroyed due to various reasons but the most common reasons are due to ageing process which we call osteoarthritis. So there is degenerative wear and tear of the joint which leads to osteoarthritis or there can be an inflammatory cause such as rheumatoid arthritis which involves the lining of the joint and damages the cartilage. Now then people ask or most of the people who come to us with arthritis involve arthritis of the knee joint. So knee joint is the joint which is common in which is most commonly involved in osteoarthritis of the knee joint. The patient usually comes with pain, swelling and stiffness. They have difficulty in walking, climbing stairs and sometimes in severe cases, they have pain even at rest.

How do we manage that?

Now in order to manage that first, we should know what is the cause of arthritis? So we do some x-rays. X-rays give us an idea about the cause of arthritis as well as the extent of the damage. Now we also go for some blood tests which will give us an information if it's because of an inflammation or any infection. So these are the various causes of arthritis.

Now how do you manage our practice?

 Patient has a company with pain, swelling and such disability so initially, we start with conservative management which is nonoperative management. So in that we ask the patient to do some lifestyle modification like we asked them to avoid using stairs or if they are using stairs then they have to use a railing so that there is not much stress on the joints. If they are into sports then we ask them to shift from contact sports like jogging or Aerobic to low impact exercises like swimming or cycling. We send them for physiotherapy. Physiotherapy helps a lot in arthritis. It helps in gaining strength in the muscles which protects the joint and it also gives increased flexibility and moment of the joint. We can give some medications and form of painkillers and thin perimeter because they reduce the inflammation, reduces the pain and in acute cases we can also inject the region.

Now, in severe arthritis when all this treatment has failed in that case it requires surgery. Surgery can be in different form. If the patient is having any loose fragment which is causing locking, then, in that case, we can go for arthroscope which is a keyhole surgery, where we make just small incisions like the tip of this pen, we put our instruments inside and we take out that piece which is a simple thing. In severe cases, we go for replacements. So it can be either partial replacement or total knee replacement. Now in severe cases with patients of great disability who have difficulty in walking who have pain on each step, who have pain even at rest, knee replacement surgery is a boon for these patients. It increases their activity, it increases their social life and it also makes them more mobile.

So if you want to know more about arthritis, if you are suffering from this problem and you want treatment you can contact me through lybrate or you can contact me at Sant Parmanand Hospital, Delhi.

Thank you.