Knee pain – not just a simple case of osteoarthritis

Knee osteoarthritis is, like so many chronic pain problems, a bit of a weird one. While most of us learned that osteoarthritis is a fairly benign disease, one that we can’t do a whole lot about but one that plagues many of us, the disability associated with a painful knee is pretty high – and we still don’t have much of a clue about how the pain we experience is actually generated.  Cartilage doesn’t have nociceptive fibres, yet deterioration of cartilage is the hallmark of osteoarthritis, though there are other structures capable of producing nociceptive input around the knee joint. Perhaps, as some authors argue, knee osteoarthritis is a “whole organ disease with a complex and multifactorial pathophysiology involving structural, psychosocial and neurophysiological factors” (Arendt-Nielsen, Skou, Nielsen et al, 2015). Central sensitisation, or the process in which spinal cord and the brain become “wound up” or more responsive to input than normal, and seems to be a factor in the pain some people experience when they have osteoarthritic knees (Fingleton, Smart, Moloney et al, 2015; Finan, Buenaver, Bounds, Hussain, Park, Haque et al, 2013), particularly in women (Bartley, King, Sibille, et al, 2016). The problem is, few people are routinely screened for central sensitisation before they receive surgical treatment (a good question is whether pain-related research is a factor in orthopaedic assessment). Why should we think about ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Assessment Pain Pain conditions Research Science in practice biopsychosocial Chronic pain disability pain management rehabilitation treatment Source Type: blogs