National Arthritis Awareness Month: What is Arthritis?
What is Arthritis of the Foot and Ankle?
Transcript
Dr. Austin Hewlett
As you may or may not be aware, May is National A
rthritis Awareness Month,
so this month i'm going to be providing
you with a series of short videos
where we talk about arthritis. I hope you
find these videos not only informative
but helpful.
What is arthritis?
Arthritis is essentially when a joint doesn't function correctly. W e're going to simplify things and look at arthritis as two types of arthritis. 1) T here are systemic arthritis, things like rheumatoid arthritis where your body actually attacks its own cartilage, and 2) there's good old-fashioned wear and tear arthritis. Today we're going to talk about good old-fashioned wear and tear arthritis and call it osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis occurs in people who participate in activities where they're repeatedly doing something or overusing a joint. Let's consider somebody who plays a sport where they're constantly jumping up and down or an individual who participates or is employed in the field where they are constantly required to bend and squat. People who do these things are going to overuse and wear out the joints of their foot and ankle . These are the types of people who can get osteoarthritis of their foot and ankle.
