Common Types of Arthritis

Common Types of Arthritis

Meaning of Arthritis:

joint inflammation (arth = joint; itis = inflammation)

One misconception about arthritis is that only one kind exists. However, arthritis refers to more than 100 different diseases that affect the joints and tissue around the joints. Some forms, such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, can affect other parts of the body. People with arthritis face many challenges as a result of the disease, including pain, stiffness, and other symptoms. If you do have arthritis, it is important to review the most common types and get the proper diagnosis from a health professional.

Osteoarthritis:

What It Is: it is also known as a degenerative joint disease or a disease that worsens with age.

Often a result of traumatic injury to joints through athletic activities, an automobile accident, and industrial accidents often resulting in the early breakdown and destruction of cartilage.
All joints are affected but the greatest amount of degeneration occurs in weight-bearing joints, such as the lower spine, hips, knees, and ankles.
Symptoms include pain and stiffness in the joints and in severe cases creaking, popping, and grinding sounds are heard.
Can cause disfiguring and painful destruction of the hand and shoulder joints and can be a major source of chronic disability.
Severe, advanced, degenerative arthritis often requires total surgical joint replacement.

Risk Factors: Joint trauma, obesity; and repetitive joint use causing the breakdown of cartilage and bones from the wear and tear of life.
Treatments: Medications, education, physical activity and exercise, heat or cold, joint protection, weight loss if overweight, sometimes surgery.

Adult Rheumatoid Arthritis:

What It Is: an auto-immune disease that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks the lubrication liquid the joints are surrounded by, leading to damage of both the cartilage and adjacent bone.
Affects any joint but most commonly starts with inflammation in the hands and feet while also affecting the wrists, elbows, shoulders, ankles, and knees.
Cause of disease remains unknown, although doctors suspect that genetic factors along with environmental factors trigger the disease.
Gradually joints become tender and muscles around the joints become spastic.
Reluctance to move joints due to severe pain results in muscle wasting, and the surrounding muscles are weakened and shrink from lack of use.
Disease lasts for up to 20 years or more with only 50 percent of those who have struggled with the condition recovering enough to go back to their original occupations.
Ten percent never recover and are severely disabled and confined to a bed or a wheelchair.
Possible Risk Factors: use of hair dyes for more than 20 years; using insulin replacement therapy for diabetes; psychosocial stress related to marital problems; tick-borne infections, exposure to horses, a short fertility period, smoking, and previous injury.
- In men, the use of private well water and exposure to mold indoors were linked to the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
- Occupational hairdressers have also been linked to rheumatoid arthritis.
Treatments: Medications, exercise, rest, and joint protection.

Juvenile Arthritis:

What It Is: it is similar to forms of arthritis that adults suffer from, often affecting five or more joints.

Occasionally affects other body systems, including causing anemia, enlargement of the spleen, fever, swelling in lymph glands, and skin rash;
Females are more likely to develop this condition than males.
90 percent of the time juvenile arthritis does not develop into rheumatoid arthritis.

Ankylosing Spondylitis:

What It Is: a condition affecting the sacroiliac and spinal joints causing them to become fused, resulting in spinal stiffness and rigidity. It is often accompanied by a low-grade fever, significant fatigue and weight-loss.

In severe cases the spine is pulled into a forward, bent posture, making the patient incapable of looking ahead.
Develops in young people in their late teens but is never diagnosed in patients until after age 30.
Even minor spinal trauma can cause fractures.
May affect hips, making walking very difficult and resulting in the need for hip replacement therapy.

Gouty Arthritis:

What It Is: a painful condition that affects the joints in the feet, specifically in the region of the great toe.

Cause is unknown, but actual acute attacks of gout that can last up to several weeks result from excessive alcohol use or carelessness in diet.
Large deposits of sodium monourate crystals, known as uric acid crystals, form in the tissues surrounding the affected joints, causing pain and over time, and inflammation that slowly ruins cartilage; damage from uric acid inflammation can lead to degenerative joint disease.
Affects middle-aged men and older men, with a family history of the disease in 50 percent of the cases.

Psoriatic Arthritis:

What It Is: a condition found in two percent of people with the skin condition psoriasis who develop this associated form of arthritis.

Affects many joints in the body, especially those in the hands and the feet.
Very painful and can lead to degeneration and disability in some people.

Septic or Infectious Arthritis:

What It Is: occurs when germs infiltrate a joint, through the bloodstream or through a cut, puncture, wound or scrape. Symptoms include pain in the region of the joint, muscle spasm, and recognized tenderness and swelling.

Can cause joint dislocation, and joint fusion and rigidity.
Represents a real emergency because it can spread to other areas of the body through the bloodstream, perhaps resulting in death.
Immediate treatment by a health professional is required to minimize complications.

Sources: Joseph, J. Sweere, D.C., Golden Rules for Vibrant Health in Body, Mind and Spirit (2004), Basic Health Publications, Inc.; Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 2001

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