Knee Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the commonest form of arthritis and is a progressive condition that involves wearing away of the lining of the joint cartilage.
What is Knee Osteroarthritis?
The knee joint contains three areas or compartments (Figure K)
- The medial compartment is the weight bearing portion of the joint on the inner side of the knee.
- The lateral compartment is the weight bearing portion of the joint on the inner side of the knee.
- The patellofemoral compartment is the portion of the knee joint between the kneecap and the front of the thigh.
Osteoarthritis causes pain, swelling, stiffness and crunching or cracking noises in the knee joint. As it becomes more severe it can lead to increasing pain with activities and disruption of sleep at night. Some people can experience severe pain symptoms in the earlier stages of osteoarthritis when the osteoarthritis is still mild or moderate. In the earlier stages when the osteoarthritis is mild or moderate treatments involve painkillers, strengthening exercises and injectable treatments such as nSTRIDE APS injection.
Once the osteoarthritis is severe the surgical treatment involves a joint replacement operation. The osteoarthritis can affect different areas of the knee and therefore if the osteoarthritis and the pain symptoms are localised to one of the knee compartments then in these patients there is an option to perform a partial or unicompartmental knee replacement. Not all joint replacement surgeons can perform partial knee replacements.
In some people the osteoarthritis involves all three of the compartments of the knee. When the pain is generalised, and the severe osteoarthritis involves the three compartments then a total knee replacement is required.
