'Normal' Abnormalities in Our Knees
Modern medical imaging techniques such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) allow us to see the structures and tissues within our bodies in an extraordinary amount of detail. But, these highly detailed and readily available scans can lead to premature, unnecessary and unhelpful diagnosis of normal age-related changes that are not actually a problem. A good example of this was highlighted in the 2018 article by Kumm et al. in Acta Orthopaedica, which showed how ‘normal’ and common these ‘abnormalities’ were in their study of pain free, middle aged knees over a period of time.
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I have arthritis – will I need a joint replacement?
The CHECK cohort study findings indicate that when knee or hip OA is painful, it is the overall severity of the symptoms which increase the likelihood of having a joint replacement, rather than the rate at which these symptoms increase over time. As OA symptoms appear to remain reasonably stable over time, it may be beneficial to postpone primary joint replacement surgery to lower the future risks of revision surgery.
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Oldies Are Goldies
A summary from the book Explain Pain Supercharged by Lorimer Mosely and David Butler.
With age comes wisdom. But age may bring a lot of other baggage as well! Our society holds many beliefs and perceptions about getting older, and some of these are myths which need to be challenged. Lorimer Mosely and David Butler, in their excellent book Explain Pain Supercharged, tackle some of the most common myths about ageing and pain that persist in our culture and may make us unintentionally ageist.
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Ignorance Might Be Bliss When It Comes To Medical Scans
The increased availability and quality of medical scans is an important and potentially lifesaving advancement in modern medicine, but do we know too much? We have started to discover that many bone, joint, tendon and other soft tissue conditions that are seen on scans, are pain free and appear to be a common part of the aging process. The phrase ignorance is bliss, comes to mind here.
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