In this video, we're going to talk about osteoarthritis. Now, osteoarthritis in the name itself means inflammation in the bony part or the cartilage of any joint. Now, this name is a little bit problematic, because arthritis means that there's inflammation, which we talked about as a bodily response or a natural response of the body to some sort of invasion or damage. But osteoarthritis doesn't need an inflammatory response per se. It should be known as osteoarthritis. We'll put this at the side for a moment.
Osteoarthritis is when you have chronic changes to the knee. osteoarthritis of the knee, of course, there can be osteoarthritis of any joint, but here specifically, we're talking about knee pain. Now if you recall from the video about septic arthritis, we talked that it happened to one knee mostly osteoarthritis is commonly a problem. both knees. pain will usually happen with also osteoarthritis while you're doing physical exercise. And this can be just regularly walking from one place to another.
It doesn't have to be special exertion of sports, or stairs or jumping. Regular walking can really hurt. osteoarthritis usually happens to the older population above the age of 50. But it can also start earlier. It's important to note about osteoarthritis, that this is a problem that will get worse over time. It's not something that will happen acutely for a few days or weeks and then go away.
It's a chronic problem that consistently and consistently gets worse unless you take action of course, which is something that we're going to talk about a little bit later on. osteoarthritis can be diagnosed with a thorough medical history, and a physical examination of your doctor. He might also ask for an X ray of your knees. This is also a great way to look at your knees and the cartilage between In diagnosis problem, I mentioned that the older population is at risk. I want to also mention that people who are overweight are especially at risk, because this puts a lot of pressure on your knees, and this can cause damage to the cartilage. Let's have a quick a quick review of this topic.
Osteoarthritis usually happens in both knees, not just one. It's a problem of the older population. And it's a problem that goes and gets worse, not an acute problem that happens and passes. There are a few ways to treat osteoarthritis, which is something that we'll get into in the next video.