Arthritis of the Hip Free eBook

Arthritis in the hip significantly affects day-to-day life. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do you treat arthritis?” read our newest ebook. It discusses arthritis treatment, the anatomy of the hip and how arthritis affects it, pain management, and the different types of pain that exist.

THE DEFINITION OF ARTHRITIS

Arthritis is an umbrella term that refers to joints and inflammation in and around joints. There are over 100 different conditions that fall under the term of arthritis. While there are different types of arthritis, the focus of this book is osteoarthritis, also known as degenerative joint disease (Arthritis Foundation, 2020).

Osteoarthritis refers to changes in one or multiple joints that are not due to infection, general body inflammatory processes or metabolic diagnoses (Arthritis Foundation, 2020). It is called “degenerative, but it can happen really early in our lives. For example, osteoarthritis of the spine can be seen on x-rays of people as young as 20+ years old (Brinjikji et al 2015). Also, knee arthritis has been found in the x-rays of college basketball players (Major et al 2002).

There are many different types of changes that occur to bone as we age.

Early on in the process of human development, our bones are softer, thinner and less dense. As we start walking and moving, our bones respond to the pulling of muscles attached to them and to gravity to become denser, thicker, longer and stronger. When we stop growing, our bones don’t stop changing. In fact, our bones continue to “remodel” for our entire lives. Our bones are alive, and they are constantly responding to the stress and strain of muscles and gravitational forces on them. As such, our bones will change shape depending on how we use them, how our muscles pull on them, and even physical trauma or injury they’ve endured. This process is normal and healthy.