March 4, 2008

New Guidelines For Osteoarthritis… Good Or Bad?.. And What Do They Mean If You Have The Disease?

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis and the leading cause of chronic musculoskeletal pain and limited mobility in older people worldwide.
It is a disease that causes cartilage in weight-bearing areas such as the neck, low back, hips, knees, and the base of the thumbs to deteriorate and wear away.
Since it is so common, many treatments have been advocated. Some treatments work and others don0t. However, the sheer number of claims of efficacy can be overwhelming to both physicians as well as patients.
Guidelines are often created by various organizations in medicine to help both the patient as well as the physician arrive at decisions. These guidelines are formulated to let the physician and patient know what types of diagnostic criteria or treatment methods have enough evidence behind them to be recommended for use.
A new set of treatment recommendations for knee and hip osteoarthritis have been released by a scientific organization, the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI).
These are evidence-based recommendations 0 meaning they have the power of scientific data backing them up. A subcommittee of OARSI was given the task of coming up with specific guidelines to help clear the confusion and clutter surrounding what really works and what doesn0t […]