What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis can be a debilitating condition that robs our patients of their quality of life. Through effective treatment, the team at Progressive Chiropractic Berwick can increase movement and decrease pain and stiffness.
What is Osteoarthritis?
Are you one of the many people in Berwick who experiences Osteoarthritis? Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative condition whereby the joints of the body become inflamed causing wear and loss of the bony cartilage and bones to rub together. It often results in pain, swelling, stiffness and reduced movement and flexibility and can have a negative effect on the quality of life. While it can affect any joint in the body, it mostly affects the load-bearing joints such as the spine, knees, hips, fingers and big toe joints.
The most common symptoms of osteoarthritis include:
- Joint pain
- Inflammation
- Stiffness in the joint
- Loss of flexibility and reduced range of motion
- Tenderness or discomfort when pressing on the affected areas with your fingers
- Grating, crackling, clicking or popping sounds when you move your joints
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Risk factors of Osteoarthritis
While there is no one single cause of osteoarthritis certain risk factors may increase the likelihood of developing this condition including:
- being overweight which puts a greater load on the hips and knees
- previous injury to a joint
- overuse of the joints such as frequent kneeling, climbing, squatting
- manual handling jobs involving heavy lifting
- repetitive use of hands
- being at least 50 years old according to the Arthritis Foundation
How can chiropractic help with Osteoarthritis?
While osteoarthritis is a chronic condition that cannot be cured, its symptoms can be managed such that quality of life is not affected too significantly. Chiropractic treatment is one means of conservative management of osteoarthritis and can:
- help manage pain – adjustments can help to realign the joints and reduce painful pressure on bone and cartilage
- reduce joint stiffness – in addition to cartilage breakdown, the muscles and ligaments surrounding the joint can become stiffer in osteoarthritis. This can lead to pain which in turn causes inactivity, which as a consequence leads to further pain and stiffness. Chiropractic adjustments, massage and other soft tissue therapies can help to relieve muscle stiffness which improves the range of motion and flexibility
- ease muscle spasms – muscle spasms are a common occurrence in osteoarthritis. Chiropractic adjustments can reduce pressure on nerves, helping to stop muscle spasms
- decrease inflammation – joint inflammation is one of the causes of pain and stiffness in osteoarthritis and this is found when joints are misaligned. Chiropractic adjustments correct these misalignments and reduce inflammation and pain
- reduce the risk of falls – stiff joints can cause balance issues and are a fall risk. Patients with osteoarthritis in their hips or knees have a higher risk of falling than patients without osteoarthritis so chiropractic treatments can reduce this stiffness and exercises can help improve stability and balance
- reduce medication dependence – by providing symptom relief that is not pharmacological, chiropractic management of osteoporosis can help reduce the reliance upon arthritis medications and the burden of their side effects
In conjunction with conservative chiropractic treatment, other treatment modalities can help manage the symptoms associated with osteoarthritis.
These include:
- nutritional supplements – chondroitin sulphate, glucosamine, fish oil and krill oil have been found to replenish cartilage
- weight loss – reducing the amount of load placed on hip and knee joints reduces the cartilage degeneration and severity of osteoarthritis
- low impact exercises – such as swimming, hydrotherapy, walking, gentle resistance training, and cycling can help improve joint mobility and reduce stiffness
- surgery – in severe cases may be required to remove degenerative discs, clean out joint spaces, fuse spinal vertebrae, and remove bone spurs
Do you need help with Osteoarthritis?
Research on chiropractic treatment and Osteoarthritis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161475410003362?via%3Dihub
https://chiro.org/ChiroZine/ABSTRACTS/Degenerative_Joint_Disease_and_Disability.shtml
Chiropractic care has been shown to improve mobility, flexibility, potentially reverse, stop or retard degenerative joint disease (arthritis) and lessen the predisposition to injury and disability. Brantingham, J. (1994). Spinal manipulation may help reduce spinal degenerative joint disease and disability. Dynamic Chiropractic, 12(7)
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