Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease. It is also called a degenerative disease. Cartilage which acts as a cover for the bones of the joints breaks and sometimes disintegrates completely. As a result the person gets stiff and painful joints. Many times the joints swell and movement of the joint becomes restricted.
Why the cartilage breaks or why it disintegrates or why it does not regenerates these are the questions of which answers are not found satisfactorily. All over the world research has been going on to find out the reason of why osteoarthritis takes place and osteoarthritis treatment.
New research in osteoarthritis treatment is still going on to find out the cause of the disease and then how to control or reverse the disease. It is a degenerative disease. No cure has been found for it so far. Once the degeneration starts there is no sure way to stop the progress of the disease.
The line of osteoarthritis treatment which is followed by the doctors is treating the symptoms. They try and relieve the pain in the joints. But new research in the osteoarthritis treatment is focusing to find out a medication which will be able to prevent the disease or slow down the process of degeneration of the cartilage once it starts. By doing the research the doctors are hoping to save the joints from being damaged.
Most of the osteoarthritis treatments and drugs that are used in treating osteoarthritis have mixed reviews. There is a need to do more research. For example one drug called doxycyclin is used because it may stop some enzymes from damaging the cartilage.
It has been found that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are normal cartilage components. You can take theses components as a form of nutritional supplements. Some results have shown that it helps in pain reductions and slows down the process of cartilage degeneration. In other experiments it has failed to show the desired results in patients with mild osteoarthritis. It has worked only with the patients suffering from moderate osteoarthritis.
New research is also being done regarding the role of vitamins in the osteoarthritis. It has come to notice that the patient with high levels of vitamin C or D intake, the progression of osteoarthritis is less.
New research in osteoarthritis treatment has shown that tissue engineering technology can be helpful in treating the disease. The research is going on in enzyme engineering, cartilage cell replacement, stem cell transplant and platelet rich plasma grafting techniques. They are also studying the role of hyaluronic acid in slowing down the progression of the disease.
