Arthritis is one of the leading health concerns amongst the elderly, and can negatively impact on their wellness and overall quality of life during their senior years. Thanks to new research and development, this difficult condition could prove to be more treatable in the future.
The wellbeing of patients is currently adversely affected by the increasing global incidences of osteoarthritis, a debilitating disease which causes cartilage to degenerate and leads to extreme and chronic pain and inflammation.
This rise may be linked to the growing obesity problem, as weight is one of the biggest risk factors in the development of osteoarthritis, second only to advancing age, as the joints of obese individuals are placed under an enormous amount of physical strain.
Now, new surgical techniques are improving outcomes for patients living with osteoarthritis, with arthroscopy implants becoming more commonplace. The new surgical techniques are far less invasive and use increasingly sophisticated materials for the implant, and have therefore boosted the popularity of these types of surgery.
Prior to the introduction of these new techniques, procedures such as joint reconstruction and repair were commonplace but were highly invasive with a long recovery period. The new methods use bio-absorbable materials and not only provide extra strength for the joints but also promote the growth of bones and aid recovery time.
With the new techniques, recovery times are much shorter and the long-term outcome is also generally much better. In addition to this, it is a much more cost effective way of dealing with the condition of osteoarthritis. There is no longer any need to cut through muscles or create large incisions meaning the surgery is shorter, recovery is quicker and hospitalisation is less of an expensive as patients are able to return to normal routines in a relatively short period of time.
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