What is osteoarthritis of the knee?
A degenerative disease that causes wear and tear of articular cartilage resulting in pain and inflammation.
It affects more Women over 55 years old, but everyone can suffer from it.
There may be factors that promote cartilage consumption such as:
- Aging
- Weight Gain;
- Previous surgeries or fractures;
- Genetic Predisposition.
How is knee osteoarthritis treated?
There is a solution for each stage of pathology
In the initial stage, decreasing pain requires the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, changing one’s lifestyle by losing weight, and perhaps associating low-gravity exercise (cycling, gym exercises, swimming, water exercises, Yoga, etc.).
Later, in the intermediate stage, a role in improving knee pain and function is played by infiltrative therapies.
In the advanced stage, if conservative (nonsurgical) treatments do not allow for pain improvement, we will turn to surgical treatments.
- If a deviation of the weight-bearing axis ( varus knee or valgus knee) is present , benefit can be had by correcting the pathological axis by performing a Corrective Osteotomy.
- If the cartilage wear is due to missing part of the previously removed meniscus, you may benefit from a Meniscus Transplant.
- When cartilage wear has reached the bone, the intervention to achieve pain benefit and recovery of knee function is the Knee Prosthesis.
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