'Most common arthiritis myth is it only occurs to old'

Arthritis affects more than 15 per cent of India’s population and one of the most common misconception in the society is that this is a disease of old people, said Principal consultant Orthopedics at Max hospital, Dr Hemanshu Kochhar while addressing media persons on the occasion of World Arthritis day here on Wednesday.

He informed arthritis is increasingly being reported in the younger population also. “Earlier we used to see patients in the age group of 60-65 years coming ahead with the problem but now younger patients are also coming to us. Nowadays treatment for advanced arthritis with severe joint damage in both elderly and young adults is very successful with advancements in joint replacement surgery and minimally invasive joint preservation surgeries,’’ he said.

The Senior Consultant-Orthopedics at Max hospital, Dr Gaurav Gupta, said that use of technology is helping in improving and getting more accurate results, like computer navigation, minimally invasive Total Knee Replacement (TKR), Partial knee replacement, longer lasting implants, preservation surgeries, reverse shoulder replacement of very bad arthritic shoulder joints. 

He informed that procedures like revision knee surgeries, which are more complex and technically demanding, are now successfully performed.

Explaining about TKR the specialists said that it is a surgical procedure whereby the diseased knee joint is replaced with artificial material referred to as prosthesis. Knee replacement not only relieves the patient from the chronic pain but also gives them an improved quality of life, elaborated the experts further.

World Health Organisation (WHO) has dedicated October’ 12  as day of creating awareness about Arthritis. The theme of this year is ‘small things matter for people with Arthritis’ which seeks to make life easier for the many millions of sufferers.