Osteoarthritis what can you do about it?

 

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Auteur: Bart van Ommen – ⏱ 8 minuten

Every year, nearly 1.4 billion people suffer from osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis can occur in all joints of the body. However, knee osteoarthritis (also known as gonarthrosis) is the most common. In this article we explain what osteoarthritis is and what you can do about it. For more specific information see our in-depth articles:

• Knee osteoarthritis (gonarthrosis)
• Thumb osteoarthritis (rhizo osteoarthritis)

What can I do about osteoarthritis?

There are different treatment methods for osteoarthritis, which best suits your situation depends on the severity of your complaint and activity level.

Adjustments in daily life

If you have osteoarthritis, it is wise to check whether:

• You move enough: Insufficient exercise can cause your joints to stiffen and your muscles to slacken, putting strain on the cartilage.
• You put excessive strain on the joint: in some sports and activities, a joint is overloaded. In these types of cases, it is wise to minimize this overload.

Pain relief

In many cases, pain-fighting medication is prescribed for osteoarthritis such as: paracetamol, diclofenac and ibuprofen.

Physiotherapy and exercises

With osteoarthritis, it is always advised to keep moving. Many people logically move less with pain, but this does not benefit the recovery. The joint must continue to move. The joint can otherwise become stiff and in the long term the muscles can slacken. Through physiotherapy and exercises, the joint is kept moving without overloading it.

Brace

A brace is often used by healthcare professionals against osteoarthritis. A brace is an accessible way to spare the joint. This allows you to continue to use the joint, without overloading the joint. An osteoarthritis brace often contains ribs used to spare the joint. In addition, by means of compression, the proprioception of the joint is increased. Click here for more information about the effect of a brace.

Do you want to know which brace best suits your complaint? Then fill in the Bracewijzer .

Operation

In some extreme cases, the joint is operated on. Three common operations are discussed below:

• If the joint is blocked, you can choose to remove the blocking piece of bone.
• If the cartilage is affected in a specific place, microfracture treatment is often used.
• If microfracture treatment cannot be used, the last solution is a prosthesis.

Source: Prevalence and number of new cases of osteoarthritis – Volksgezondheidenzorg.info 2017