Source: Daily Rx
What you put in your body can affect your risk of disease, even your risk
of osteoarthritis. If you’re trying to prevent this “wear-and-tear†type of
arthritis, you may want to eat more almonds and spinach.
Eating more magnesium – a mineral found in many green vegetables, beans and
nuts – it may lower the risk of knee osteoarthritis.
Source: Daily Rx
Osteoarthritis happens when joints and joint tissues wear down over time.
Usually, doctors use X-ray imaging to see this joint damage. But another
imaging technique may give doctors a better picture.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) spotted many signs of knee osteoarthritis
in patients that had no signs of knee osteoarthritis in X-ray images.
Source: Medical Breakthroughs
Using pluripotent stem cells, a team of Duke Medicine researchers has
engineered cartilage. The findings suggest that induced pluripotent stem
cells (iPSCs) may be a viable source of patient-specific articular
cartilage tissue.
Source: Science Centric
Rush University Medical Centre is the only hospital in Illinois – and one
of only a few nationwide – using cartilage transplants to repair damaged
shoulder joints.
Conservative treatment for cartilage defects in the shoulder, as for any
joint, includes physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, and
steroid injections. If these treatments are ineffective, arthroscopy, which
involves removing scar tissue and loose pieces of cartilage through a small
incision, has traditionally been the alternative of choice. But arthroscopy
often provides only temporary relief, since the underlying damage to the
cartilage is not corrected.
Source: Science Centric
A standard shoulder replacement, a decades old treatment for severe
shoulder arthritis, would likely not have worked for her due to her
deficient rotator cuff. However, a recently developed – and radically
different – prosthesis, called a reverse total shoulder, offered the best
chance of decreasing her pain and improving shoulder function.
‘A normal shoulder is a ball-and-saucer joint, with its stability and
motion governed to a large extent by the surrounding rotator cuff
musculature,’ said Dr Omer Ilhai, an orthopedic surgeon at The Methodist
Hospital in Houston. ‘In arthritis, the smooth cartilage overlying and
cushioning the surface of the bones is worn away, leaving rough, exposed
bone surfaces to rub against each other. This bone-on-bone contact is very
painful and usually associated with joint stiffness.’