Arthritis literally means “joint inflammation.” Arthritis is caused by a group diseases and conditions causing pain, stiffness, and swelling in joints.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease that damages the coating surrounding our joints while also destroying our bones, tissue, and joints over time.
Osteoarthritis is an age related progressive condition that slowly damages the cartilage surrounding the ends of bones and is common in weight bearing architecture like the hip, knee, and spine.
Ligament is elastic strong connective tissue band which connects two bones to each other. It helps to function two or more structures intended to bring about desired joint movement in smooth and coordinated pattern.
Injury to ligament causes instability of joints and may lead to pain and progressive degeneration of the involved joint
Tendon is thick fibrous connective tissue band which attaches the muscles to the bone. It helps to bring about the action of muscles by pulling the bone during muscle contraction.
There are various disorders affecting the tendons from simple irritation to frank tears, thus hampering the action of involved muscles.
Knee pain may be due to variety of disorders affecting various internal structures of the knee. The most common problems are due to injuries or due to age related erosion of the joints.
Treatment aims at finding the root cause of pain and then treating accordingly. Treatment can be conservative and injections in early problems, arthroscopy procedures in ligament and meniscus injuries, and replacement surgeries in advanced arthritis.
Shoulder dislocations may occur due to inherent ligament laxity, or may happen after trauma due to injury to internal structures of the shoulder.
Shoulder dislocations after trauma usually need thorough evaluation and investigations to delineate the exact cause and magnitude. Most often they will need surgical procedure to stabilise the shoulder as the geometry of the joint doesn’t provide enough support. With the recent advances most of the surgeries can be done with high efficiency through key hole procedures (arthroscopy)
It’s a common age and hormone related disease, where there is defective calcium deposition into the bones making the bone soft and increasing the chances of fractures. Its more common in females after the menopause due to the hormonal imbalance.
Sciatica is pain originating in the lower back and going down the back of the leg. This usually happens in the single leg. You may also get altered sensations and weakness in the involved area.
It usually happens due to compression of nerve roots in the spine. There can be multiple causes for this compression, most common being the prolapsed intervertebral disc “slipped disc”
Treatment involves relieving the nerve root pressure by bed rest, medicines, physiotherapy. Sometimes you may need pain block procedures. In severe cases, formal removal of the slipped portion of the disc may be needed.
Hip pain in young people often is a result of secondary arthritis of the hip. This may be caused by variety of disease like avascular necrosis of the hip to some kind of inflammatory arthritis like Ankylosing Spondylitis or Rheumatoid disease.
The management starts with reducing the pain and improving the quality of life by giving rehabilitation. Sometimes the disease can rapidly progress necessitating surgical procedure like total hip replacement.
Advancement of prosthesis design and newer materials for bearing have increased the long term survival of the prosthesis giving a good life to affected people and getting rid of their pain and debilitation.
Degenerative arthritis is now commonly seen in the fifth decade of life. This is extremely debilitating in active and working individuals. Often the quality of life is affected due to pain. However, such patients are not suitable for total knee replacement and previously they used to bear pain till the age and disease progressed to a level which was not manageable.
However, nowadays there are various good options for such patients, which can give the good quality of life till they are ready for total knee replacement. Most common techniques are opening wedge high tibial osteotomy and partial knee replacement (Uni Knee). The best solution is personalised after thorough clinical evaluation and analysis of the knee.
Partial knee is a well known method to treat patients with single compartment osteoarthritis. There are immense benefits in correctly selected patients.
The most important benefit of partial knee is that the surgery saves all the undamaged portion of your natural knee. It also saves all the ligaments of the knee joint. This makes the knee fell more like natural and the function is far superior. Also you get complete knee bending and pain free mobility