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Osteoarthritis (OA) Pathophysiology and Treatment Options

In the Western world, the most common arthropathy is osteoarthritis, which also happens to be the leading cause of pain and disability. When considering the pathophysiology of this condition, its pathogenesis involves the degradation of cartilage and the remodeling of bone. This occurs because of chondrocytes’ active response in the articular cartilage and inflammatory cells (Knapik et al., 2018). Consequently, the released enzymes from the cells are responsible for the breakdown of collagen and proteoglycans, ultimately destroying the articular cartilage. The destruction of the articular cartilage then leads to sclerosis development because of the underlying subchondral bone exposure. The sclerosis is then followed by critical changes whose results are the formation of osteophytes and subchondral bone cysts (Knapik et al., 2018). This leads to a subsequent loss of joint space over time, a loss that occurs progressively.

The condition has several risk factors, including advancement in age, manual labor, obesity, and gender (female). The condition is further common in small joints of the feet and hands, knee joint, and hip joint. In this case, the treatment options revolve around the different diagnoses, which are essential in finding the right remedy depending on the type of joints affected (Mora et al., 2018). Therefore, the management of the osteoarthritis can range from a conservative approach to medical to surgical, depending on the intensity. The conservative approach involves educating the people on how they can protect the joints with the most effective strategies like physiotherapy. In contrast, the medical method uses simple analgesics and topical NSAIDs to manage osteoarthritis with varying success experienced using the intra-articular steroid injections (Mora et al., 2018). In case of a difficulty to manage the condition with the two approaches, the next treatment option is to embrace surgical intervention whose choice depends on the affected site; the options include arthroplasty, arthrodesis, and osteotomy.