Physiotherapy: diseases — симптомы, диагностика и лечение

Osteoarthritis of the knee joint is the gradual destruction of articular cartilage, due to which the bones begin to rub against each other. This is the most common cause of knee pain in people over 45 years of age. Modern medicine cannot restore already lost cartilage, and this should be understood immediately - so as not to spend years on products that promise to “grow cartilage.” But it is quite possible to slow down the destruction, remove pain and maintain mobility, and in severe cases, endoprosthetics returns a person to normal life.

Osteochondrosis is age-related degenerative changes in the intervertebral discs and joints of the spine. It is important to understand: to one degree or another, almost all people after 30–35 years have them, and in themselves they are not a disease. The problem is that this diagnosis in post-Soviet medicine is used to explain almost any pain - in the back, neck, head, arm, heart. Meanwhile, in most cases, back pain is not associated with “salt deposits”, but with muscles and joints, and responds well to movement, rather than rest and IVs.

A heel spur is a bony growth on the heel bone that is usually found on x-rays in a person with heel pain. Hence the natural conclusion: it hurts because of the thorn, which means it needs to be removed. This conclusion is incorrect, and understanding why changes the entire treatment. The spur does not prick soft tissues and does not hurt in itself: it is also found in many people who have never complained about the heel, and vice versa, in some patients with severe pain it does not exist at all. The pain is caused by the condition of the plantar fascia - a dense ligament running from the heel to the toes: due to overload, microdamage and inflammation occur at the site of its attachment. The spur is only a trace of a long-standing overload, an imprint of the process, and not its cause. Therefore, it is not the spur that is treated, but the fascia, and the main remedy is not injections, but regular stretching.

Prostatitis is inflammation of the prostate gland. This is one of the most common urological problems in young and middle-aged men and at the same time one of the most “treatable” diagnoses: the word prostatitis hides completely different conditions - from acute bacterial inflammation, requiring immediate antibiotic therapy, to chronic pelvic pain syndrome, where antibiotics are not needed at all. Therefore, treatment begins not with pills, but with accurate diagnosis.

Epicondylitis is pain in the area of ​​the bony prominence of the elbow that occurs due to overload of the tendons that attach to this protrusion. The name “tennis elbow” is historical and misleading: tennis players make up only a small portion of those affected, and the vast majority are people who do not play sports at all. These are office workers who spend the day with a computer mouse, electricians and plumbers, hairdressers, cooks, musicians, drivers, young parents who repeatedly lift their child in outstretched arms. The second persistent misconception concerns treatment: it is believed that you need rest, and the pain will go away on its own. Rest really reduces the pain, but does not restore the tendon - the tissue, weakened by inactivity, becomes even more vulnerable, and the pain returns at the first load. The basis of treatment has long been recognized not as rest or injections, but as special exercises.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common compressive neuropathy. The median nerve is compressed in a narrow canal at the level of the wrist, and the person begins to wake up at night with numbness and burning in the fingers. A characteristic detail by which the syndrome is recognized almost unmistakably: the thumb, index, middle and half of the ring finger are affected, while the little finger remains normal. The initial stages respond well to conservative treatment, but neglected compression leads to irreversible atrophy of the hand muscles.

Radiculopathy is damage to the nerve root as it exits the spine. In everyday life it is called “pinched nerve” or radiculitis. A distinctive feature is that the pain does not remain in the back, but “shoots” along the nerve: in the arm to the fingers if the cervical spine is affected, or in the buttock and along the back of the leg with lumbar pain. Along with the pain comes numbness and weakness. Most cases resolve with conservative treatment, but there are several situations in which delay is dangerous.