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Stories for Reprint
Hip Arthritis Can Lead to Knee Arthritis
By Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff
Ever notice when you are carrying heavy groceries in one arm, how you automatically change your walking pattern to balance the weight of the groceries? An ongoing study has found that people who have hip osteoarthritis, or OA, on one side may unknowingly change their walking pattern and in turn put more force on the opposite knee, causing damage in that knee. OA is a common form of arthritis, in which the cartilage covering the ends of bones within a joint wears away, often causing pain and disability.
In the study being conducted at Rush Medical College in Chicago, investigators have looked at knee x-rays of 41 people with hip osteoarthritis. They found significantly more cartilage loss in the knee on the opposite side of the hip affected with OA, compared to the knee on the same side. In short, if a person had OA in the right hip, there was more evidence of osteoarthritis at the left knee.
Najia Shakoor, a rheumatologist at Rush Medical College and the principal investigator of the study says she and fellow researchers found in an earlier study that people who had undergone a hip replacement on one side were more likely to have a later knee replacement on the opposite side. They observed that the patients in the study had changed the way they walked so that they were putting more force on the opposite knee. Some people even continued to walk with an abnormal walking pattern two years after hip replacement surgery. Shakoor suggests that these individuals had developed walking habits that were hard to change.
In the new study from Rush Medical College, the researchers wanted to discover if changes in muscle strength had affected how people with hip OA distributed the force they put on each knee. Shakoor says she cannot explain why people change their walking patterns and alter the force on their joints when they have hip OA on one side, but she believes that pain can be a motivating factor. "It's probably the initial thing that makes them alter the way they walk," she said.
Shakoor says the study is still at its early stages, and they are still gathering data to help them understand why people with hip OA also develop knee OA. "If we can find that out, we can intervene early in the course of the disease," she says. "Whether it's with improving muscle strength or (other means) and hopefully we can prevent the progression of their arthritis."
According to Shakoor, health care professionals need to act early and provide rehabilitation for patients who have hip replacement surgery. She says after hip replacement surgery people are usually given exercises to improve their muscle strength and help them get back to walking more normally.
Though it can affect people of all ages, OA is most common in older people. Today, almost 21 million Americans are estimated to have OA and that number is expected to grow as the baby boomer population ages. Hip OA and knee OA are two of the most common forms of arthritis.
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