StemCell Therapy

It seems that more and more patients are walking in the door diagnosed with arthritis as the cause of their pain. While many of these individuals do have arthritis of some type, it may or may not be the cause of their actual pain. There are several different types of arthritis. So when a patient arrives at physical therapy and they say that the diagnosis they have been given is arthritis, they appear shocked when we ask, What type of arthritis? The type of arthritis is important to know because it may change the direction of physical therapy or the aggressiveness of the treatment.

Osteoarthritis, also referred to as degenerative joint disease, can be either primary or secondary. Primary osteoarthritis is usually due to the aging process. The reality of life is that we are mechanical in nature, and all of our parts are subject to wear and tear. Eventually the parts just wear out. How fast the parts wear out is up to us to a large degree. If you buy a new car and take great care of it, 25 years later you have a classic car. If you take good care of your body in your 60s, 70s and beyond, you will be a classic.

Secondary osteoarthritis can be from a direct trauma to the area, such as a sports=related injury or something like a motor vehicle accident. Patients who have had to have complex surgery to repair an athletic injury may experience an acceleration of osteoarthritis later in life. This rate of arthritic development has reduced as the precision of surgical procedures has improved. Look at the difference between Joe Namath having knee surgery in the 1960s and Adrian Peterson having knee surgery in 2016. There were two very different outcomes, and while Joe Namath has already had a total knee replacement, we are yet to see the long-term outcome of Adrian Peterson. Patients who play physical sports such as ice hockey, football, wrestling, etc. may have an accelerated path to osteoarthritis of the spine. While physical conditioning helps reduce the onset of osteoarthritis, the repeated trauma cannot be reversed, only slowed.

Continued here:
Buchberger: Arthritis, and what you can do about it - Auburn Citizen

This entry was posted on January 15, 2020 at 1:44 am and is filed under Integrative Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |