Bone and joint deformation

We occasionally find that the legs of some elderly people are not particularly straight. Everyone has elderly people in their family, and I believe everyone must know the reason. Most of them are caused by bone and joint deformation. What causes bone and joint deformation and what are the symptoms? Please see below for the causes and manifestations of bone and joint deformation.

Osteitis deformans refers to a chronic bone disease of unknown etiology, with progressive rheumatic bone and joint pain, spinal and limb deformities, pathological fractures, and symptoms of brain and spinal cord compression as the main manifestations. It is also called Paget's disease and osteitis deformans. Its incidence rate varies greatly by region, race, and age. It is more common in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other regions, and is extremely rare in Africa and East Asia (including China). Both men and women can be affected, often occurring in people over 40 years old, and 15% have a family history.

Clinical manifestations

1. Symptoms

The disease has an insidious onset. The main symptoms are pain, stiffness, fatigue, bone deformities, headaches, hearing loss, and enlarged head. Paget's bone pain is deep, aching pain that is occasionally severe and may be worse at night. Pain may also be caused by nerve compression or be related to osteoarthritis, depending on the extent and location of the lesion, whether it is mono- or poly-bone, the presence or absence of deformity, and comorbidities. This disease often occurs in the axial skeleton, but can affect any bone. Common bone deformities among patients include enlarged head, hunchback and bent limbs. They may also experience basilar skull depression, compression of the spinal cord and nerve roots, otosclerosis, deafness and optic atrophy. Because bones are weakened, fractures can occur with minimal injury, most commonly in the femur, tibia, humerus, spine, and pelvis.

2. Physical signs

The patient has enlarged skull bones in both temporal regions, visible forehead bulge, varicose veins on the scalp, unilateral or bilateral sensorineural deafness or otosclerosis, vascular striae in the fundus, and a short and hunchbacked torso, resembling an ape. The patient has a staggering gait, anterolateral bending of the thigh or calf, tenderness of the periosteum and increased skin temperature. Hearing loss, spinal cord stenosis, partial paralysis, or paraplegia are all signs of nerve compression. Paget's disease of bone is a metabolically active disease with severe vascular involvement, so high-output heart failure may occur. Bowing of long bones and osteoarthritis of adjacent joints may cause deformities. Pathological fracture occurs.

Joint diseases

Various bone and joint diseases, including degenerative arthritis, bursitis, synovitis, cervical spondylosis, lumbar spondylosis, frozen shoulder, bone hyperplasia, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, femoral head necrosis, etc., the root cause of the disease is not bone lesions. Modern medical research has found that the root cause lies in the loss of joint protection ability of the "joint protection system" such as cartilage.