Arthritis treatment perth

What is Arthritis?

There are many types of arthritis, but osteoarthritis is the most common, affecting just over 1 in every 5 Australians over the age of 45. It affects women almost twice as much as men and can have significant effects on the quality of life for people living with osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis treatment perth

What is osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis is a progressive chronic disease that affects the joints of your bones. It typically damages the smooth cartilage that surrounds the end of your bones until eventually there is no cartilage left. This results in ‘bone-on-bone’ movement that produces pain, swelling and decreased motion in your joints.

It typically affects the joints in your hips, knees, ankles and feet.

A: Showing the normal joint space and smooth bone structure
B: Loss of joint space or ‘bone-on-bone’ and irregular bone structure

Symptoms of Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis will generally cause pain in any of the joints affected with too much movement and use and can be very debilitating for people living with this disease. Patients usually complain of stiff joints, particularly in the mornings and are usually worse in the cold. Patients say this can get better with movement and heat, as the joint begins to warm up.

Osteoarthritis podiatrist Perth

How can we help?

Our podiatrists have a large range of treatment options available to help you at any stage of arthritis.

In the early stages of arthritis, our goals are to reduce pain, improve/maintain range of motion in the joints and strengthen the surrounding muscles to prevent further damage. This can include low level laser therapy, foot mobilisation techniques, extracorporeal shockwave therapy, dry needling, orthotic therapy, injectables and exercise therapy.

As the bones in our feet start to become more arthritic, they require more support to prevent pain and increase your ability to move. This can be achieved by muscular strengthening, supportive footwear and orthoses.
Our podiatrists understand the needs for everyone are different and that’s why we have a large range of available treatment options to find what’s right for you.

Treatment spotlight for arthritis

Shockwave Therapy:
More recent high-level studies have shown the ability for shockwave therapy to induce mesenchymal stem cell production and facilitate regeneration of damaged cartilage. Many other current treatments for arthritis are to maintain and prevent arthritis from worsening. This is an exciting and promising area of medicine as this non-invasive treatment has shown good success in repairing damaged cartilage, the cause of arthritis, with significant improvement in pain, range of motion and functionality. Read more about this treatment here.

The International Society of Medical Shockwave Treatment (ISMST) recommends the use of shockwave in osteoarthritis, and at our clinic we have seen complete resolution of arthritic pain.