VIDEO: Former football players exhibit high prevalence of OA, chronic pain
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Key takeaways:
- High prevalences of osteoarthritis and chronic pain in former American football players may lead to total joint arthroplasty at a young age.
- Physicians should explore ways to treat OA at an early stage.
In this video from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Meeting, Adam Tenforde, MD, discussed the high prevalence of osteoarthritis and total joint arthroplasty among former football players.
“Even in these former American-style football players, individuals that were athletic and active, we’re identifying that one in eight have had a total knee replacement and one in 12 have had a total hip replacement in their early 50s. We’re not certain whether that reflects the total disease burden, but likely it underrepresents the overall prevalence of arthritis,” he said. “Looking at our earlier findings [and] understanding that chronic pain has profound effects on physical and mental function, what these results are leading us to explore in future work is ways that we can treat osteoarthritis at earlier stages and perhaps advance the long-term health and well-being of these individuals, reducing the need for a total knee or total hip arthroplasty,” Tenforde added.
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