Osteoarthritis is a condition in the knee whereby there is wear or degeneration of the knee cartilage due to repetitive stress to the cartilage. In this condition, patients suffer from painful and stiff knees which disturbs their quality of life. Knee osteoarthritis tends to be more common in women than men and risk factors for this disease to develop include being overweight or excessive stress to the knees when young from heavy activities. People tend to get this disease when they are older, after the age of 55-60 years. Young people with knee ligament injuries like ACL, meniscus or PCL injuries who do not get them properly treated have a high risk of developing osteoarthritis much earlier, even at at 30-40 years.

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Can osteoarthritis be avoided?

Cartilage breakdown and wear is something that cannot be prevented because it occurs as we age and also because we repeatedly use our knees. However, we can take certain steps to reduce the knee pain and prevent stiffness from the osteoarthritis. First of all, we need to control our body weight. Being obese or overweight worsens the cartilage wear and osteoarthritis because of the increase stress on the cartilage. By reducing our weight, we can make our knees less painful and slowdown the progression of osteoarthritis.

 

Besides losing weight, we need to exercise regularly.  Exercising our joints, especially our knees helps to strengthen the muscles around the joints. When our muscles are strong, they protect our knees and absorb part of the stress to the knee. Exercising also helps prevent stiffness to our joints. Exercises which are good for the knees including cycling, swimming etc.

 

For those who are active in sports,  they need to prevent knee injuries. Doing adequate warming up exercises before a run or a game of football or badminton helps to prevent injury. Knee injuries put the cartilage at a higher risk of developing arthritis. We should wear protective gear like a knee guard to minimize the chance of knee injury. If we develop any sports injuries to our knees, we must get them treated early by an orthopaedic surgeon.

 

All these preventive measures should be started while our knees are still healthy. However, even if we have already developed mild or early knee osteoarthritis,  we can still use all these measures to maintain good knee function and reduce pain  to prevent the effects of the osteoarthritis from becoming severe.

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What is the treatment for knee osteoarthritis?

In mild or early cases of osteoarthritis, treatment is by taking painkillers, anti-inflammatory medicines, physiotherapy and modification of activity. Mild cases of knee pain can be treated by taking glucosamine either alone or in combination with chondroitin. For more severe cases, doctors can recommend injections of hyaluronic acid into the knee. Hyaluronic acid injections help with mild to moderate osteoarthritis by providing the stiff knee with lubrication as well as pain-relief. These injections generally provide symptom relief for about 6 months to 1 year.

 

If all these treatments fail to work or if the disease is too severe, only surgery will work. Total knee replacement surgery is the best option for these patients. In patients who are 55 years and above with severe osteoarthritis, total knee replacement surgery offers the best solution to relieve pain and to improve the patient’s function and quality of life. Knee replacement surgery nowadays offers 95% success to patients with very minimal risks. The knee replacement has the potential to last 15-20 years and beyond if the operation is done accurately. Perfect accuracy in total knee replacement can now be consistently achieved by the use of computer assisted surgery (CAS). CAS is the latest technology in knee replacement surgery which gives more accurate results compared to conventional knee replacement.