Treatment
Treatment is chosen according to the diagnosis, the severity of joint damage, the patient's symptoms, and how much the arthritis interferes with function and quality of life.
Goals of treatment
In medicine, treatment is usually directed toward one or more of the following objectives:
- Preventive: to eliminate or reduce the risk of developing a condition, or, when that is not possible, to slow disease progression.
- Curative: to address and correct the underlying condition when a true cure is possible.
- Symptomatic: to relieve pain and restore function when the condition cannot be fully reversed.
For osteoarthritis, treatment is often preventive and symptomatic rather than truly curative. Once established arthritis is present, the goal is usually to reduce pain, maintain mobility, improve function, slow progression when possible, and help the patient remain active.
Approach to orthopaedic care
Orthopaedic management is broadly divided into two pathways:
- Non-surgical management: focused on optimizing function, controlling symptoms, and delaying or avoiding the need for surgery through targeted, evidence-based interventions.
- Surgical management: considered when structural pathology leads to persistent symptoms or functional limitation, with the goal of restoring joint mechanics, relieving pain, and improving quality of life.
The following pages review non-surgical and surgical options for osteoarthritis in more detail.