Category Archives: knees and hips

October 28, 2017 · 12:02 am

Harvard offers hope for aging knees

I will be turning 78 in January and, thankfully, have yet to experience the kind of knee pain that many of my fellow seniors suffer. My brother, three years younger, got a titanium knee more than 10 years ago. My arthritis pain lives in the base of my thumbs, so I have trouble using my hands. Also, there is no surgery for hand arthritis. Harvard Health Letter has some positive words for those of you who have problem knees.

Stanford professor Michel Serres hikes the Dish on a regular basis.

Knee pain is common in older age, often caused by osteoarthritis (the wearing away of knee cartilage). Fortunately, there are ways to fool Father Time and postpone knee problems or even prevent them entirely. “In many cases, you can delay or avoid the need for surgical intervention, such as a knee replacement,” says Dr. Lars Richardson, an orthopedic surgeon with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

The aging knee

Your knees absorb a huge amount of pressure with every step — typically one-and-a-half times your body weight. That pressure, plus regular wear and tear, takes a toll over time. Muscles and ligaments get weaker. The knee’s two shock absorbers — pads of cartilage called menisci — start to deteriorate. So does the articular cartilage protecting the ends of the leg bones where they meet at the knee. If you have a family history of osteoarthritis, if you’re overweight, or if you’ve had some knee injuries, you may be more prone to this deterioration. Continue reading →

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Filed under arthritis, hand arthritis, harvard health letter, knees and hips, osteoarthritis, osteoarthritis pain

Tagged as aging, aging knees, arthritis, arthritis pain, harvard health letter, osteoarthritis

May 9, 2017 · 12:15 am

Knee cracking, popping could be early sign of osteoarthritis

As a long time arthritis sufferer, I have it in both hands, I am acutely aware of arthritis pain while trying to grip. I also know that arthritis can strike other joints with equal severity. Knowing the early signs may be helpful in clearing up bad health habits.

While snap, crackle and pop might be good sounds for your cereal, they may not be good noises in your knees. A new study by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine published today in Arthritis Care & Research says these might be early predictors of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis.

“Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis that affects the knee joint,” said Dr. Grace Lo, assistant professor of medicine in the section of immunology, allergy and rheumatology at Baylor. “We wanted to see if complaints about popping or snapping in the knee joint, also known as crepitus, were predictive of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis, which is a combination of a frequent history of pain as well as radiographic evidence of knee osteoarthritis.” Continue reading →

You Need Exercise to Protect Your Knees and Hips

Your knees and hips are your largest joints. They support your body’s weight and must work in close coordination to provide the mobility most people take for granted, until injury, arthritis, or other problems interfere.

Joint replacement surgery is a popular treatment option for those with severe, debilitating arthritis that causes significant pain or greatly limits their ability to move.

As we age we become more sensitive to and aware of the functioning of our knees and hips. The word age here is context sensitive. If you are above 35 it applies to you.

Exercise is more than just a good health habit; it’s also a specific and effective treatment for many knee and hip problems. Strength in the muscles around a damaged knee or hip can help support that joint by taking over some of its responsibilities. For example, your hips have to do less work to support your body weight if your quadriceps, gluteals, hamstrings, and abdominal muscles are stronger. A strong quadriceps can take over the shock-absorbing role usually played by the meniscus or cartilage in the knee.

Harvard Healthbeat said that the proper balance of strength in the muscles can hold the joint in the most functional and least painful position. With any knee or hip problem, the first muscles to lose strength are the largest antigravity muscles, the quadriceps and gluteals, so an exercise plan for any injury is likely to focus on these.

WebMD said, “Using data from joint replacement cases in the U.S. from 1997 and 2004, researcher Sunny Kim, PhD, with the Robert Stempel School of Public Health at Florida International University, analyzed the increase in the number of surgeries and their cost.
Continue reading →