Degenerative Joint Disease Health Video

Degenerative joint disease, or osteoarthritis, is caused by wearing of the cartilage wrapped around bone joints. Learn about degenerative joint disease in this health video.

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Stay healthy & active
Lower your caloric intake
Exercise
Use anti-inflammatory medication
Perform flexibility exercises

About this Author

Dr. Stallworth is board certified in rehabilitation and phsycial medicine. She graduated from Baylor College of Medicine and finished her residency at Baylor. Dr. Stallworth is known for being a superb and compassionate physician that believes in not only health of the body of the mind as well. She currently serves on the board of Centennial Medical Center and is a former board member of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She now resides with her family in middle Tennessee.

DR. CATHERINE STALLWORTH, M.D.: Hi, I am Dr. Cathy Stallworth and I'd like to talk to you about degenerative joint disease. Degenerative joint disease is basically another name for osteoarthritis. What is osteoarthritis you might ask? Osteoarthritis is basically a slow degenerative process of the joints. This is an example of a normal, healthy knee joint. This is the kneecap. This is the cartilage at the end of the knee; provides a nice cushion for the end of the knee. With osteoarthritis what happen is you start to develop some deterioration of the cartilage. As that happens, the joint space narrows and you develop bone spurs. Someone with severe osteoarthritis may have a knee that looks like this. Here you can see significant deterioration of the cartilage down to wearing and tearing into the bone. Here the bone surface is actually eroded away. What are some of the reversible risk factors and what can you do about degenerative joint disease and improving your symptoms. Certainly I always begin by recommending the most conservative approach. We know that one of the risk factors for osteoarthritis is age. Nothing you can do about that but you can certainly stay healthy and stay active as you age. Another risk factor for osteoarthritis is carrying around extra weight. So you want to if at all possible get active, get moving, watch your caloric intake and see if you can take off a few pounds. Another treatment for osteoarthritis includes the use of anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen, naproxen, Tylenol for pain. It is not anti-inflammatory but again can help. And I am personally a very big proponent of exercise. I like isometric, strengthening exercises as well as flexibility exercises. One of the things that has become available just in the last few years is Synvisc or hyaluronic acid injections. What happens there is a physician will come in and direct--and inject directly into the knee a substance that is very much like the synovial fluid and this helps to support the joint. It alleviate some of the symptoms and a lot of people find that is very, very effective. If you have gone through the conservative route, you have done your exercises, you have taken your medications, you have had your injections, you may have had steroid injections, what can you do? You can certainly consider surgery as an option.

Degenerative Joint Disease Health Video

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