Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease that worsens over time, often resulting in chronic pain. Joint pain and stiffness can become severe enough to make daily tasks difficult. Depression and sleep disturbances can result from the pain and disability of osteoarthritis.
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, autoimmune disorder and is the most debilitating form of inflammatory arthritis. In RA, the body's immune system attacks its own healthy cells and tissues, specifically the synovial (joint lining) membrane, causing pain, swelling, stiffness, and limited joint mobility.
Osteoarthritis (OA) can be crippling if untreated as it disintegrates the cartilage that supports the joints of the spine, knees, hands, and spine.
Rheumatoid arthritis is also a systemic disease, involving other body organs, whereas osteoarthritis is limited to the joints. Over time, both forms of arthritis can be crippling. The affect of rheumatoid arthritis can progress to the degree that it is crippling.
Arthritis in certain parts of the body can make it more difficult to walk. Here's how to deal with these changes in your gait and remain mobile. Having arthritis in your hips, knees, ankles, or feet can making walking harder — a side effect that can have consequences for your daily well-being and quality of life.
Significant joint damage, especially in the knees and hips, can lead to mobility problems and limitations that require a wheelchair and/or surgery. As adults age, the options to treat osteoarthritis become more limited.
Patients with severe hip arthritis may even experience pain even after stopping physical activity. For hip arthritis so severe that walking becomes an impossibility, please consult an orthopedic surgeon. There are treatments that can restore you to a normal level of physical activity.
Symptoms vary from mild to severe and may come and go. Some may stay about the same for years, but symptoms can also progress and get worse over time. Severe arthritis can result in chronic pain, difficulty performing daily activities and make walking and climbing stairs painful and grueling.
Joint damage
If rheumatoid arthritis is not treated early or is not well controlled, the inflammation in your joints could lead to significant and permanent damage. Problems that can affect the joints include: damage to nearby bone and cartilage (a tough, flexible material that covers the surface of joints)
Severe osteoarthritis is often a painful, life-limiting condition that can affect any joint in the body. In a healthy person, cartilage normally covers the ends of your bones where the joint forms. With severe osteoarthritis, the cartilage erodes and bone rubs on bone.
Rheumatoid arthritis can cause pain, swelling and deformity.
Without appropriate treatment, chronic pain, disability, and excess mortality are unfortunate outcomes of this disease. RA causes joint damage in 80% to 85% of patients, with the brunt of the damage occurring during the first 2 years of the disease. Left untreated, the risk of mortality is increased.
RA is symmetrical, where a patient feels symptoms in the same spot on both sides of the body, often in the joints in the feet and hands. Osteoarthritis, in contrast, begins in an isolated joint, often in the knee, fingers, hands, spine and hips. While both sides may hurt, one side is more painful.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis. Some people call it degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear” arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis. It tends to involve more than one of the small joints of the hands and feet.
In the study, the median survival rate for healthy adults was approximately 82 years while the median survival rate for people with RA was approximately 77 years.
There is no cure for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) and typically patients live approximately 30-years with the disease. Most common medical treatments result in short-term palliation of symptoms with little consideration of long-term risk.
The most common triggers of an OA flare are overdoing an activity or trauma to the joint. Other triggers can include bone spurs, stress, repetitive motions, cold weather, a change in barometric pressure, an infection or weight gain. Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an inflammatory disease that affects the skin and joints.
Post-traumatic arthritis can develop months to years after any physical injury to your joints. Most commonly, physicians see arthritic development in patients who have suffered from vehicle accidents, past sports injuries, military injuries, and falls.
Blood tests are not needed to diagnose all types of arthritis, but they help to confirm or exclude some forms of inflammatory arthritis. Your doctor may also draw joint fluid or do a skin or muscle biopsy to help diagnose certain forms of arthritis.
X-rays are often a good tool for determining if arthritis exists and, specifically, what type. Common types of arthritis include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and osteoarthritis. Several less common types of arthritis also occur with regular frequency.
Knee arthritis can make it hard to do many everyday activities, such as walking or climbing stairs. It is a major cause of lost work time and a serious disability for many people.
Hip arthritis is cartilage damage in the hip joint. It's a common condition that can be painful and worsen over time, affecting your mobility and quality of life.
Untreated Hip Pain Can Lead to Compensatory Injuries
Whether the cause is an injury or arthritis, or both, ignoring any hip dysfunction can increase the risk of injury in other parts of the body. This is because our musculoskeletal system is a highly interconnected system.