What causes swollen knee joints

Some elderly people will gradually find that their knee joints are swollen. Generally, such symptoms are caused by disease. Common influencing diseases include osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases. To treat such diseases, you need to go to a regular hospital for examination first and then treatment.

1. Osteoarthritis. It is the most common type of arthritis and is generally considered a chronic progressive degenerative disease. Characterized by chronic wear and tear of cartilage. It often occurs in middle-aged and elderly people. In the early stages of the disease, there are no obvious symptoms or the symptoms are mild. In the early stages, it often manifests as stiffness and discomfort in the joints, which improves with activity. Patients will experience recurrent joint pain. If there is pain when going up and down stairs or squatting, it may be due to lesions in the patella in front of the knee joint. If there is pain when walking, joint swelling, joint stiffness, deformity, and movement disorder, it may be due to degeneration of the bone cartilage between the thigh and calf. Acute inflammatory symptoms may occur during activity and will be relieved after rest and symptomatic treatment.

2. Post-traumatic arthritis. It is arthritis that develops gradually after trauma to the knee joint. The clinical manifestations are similar to those of osteoarthritis, but there is a clear history of trauma, such as common transarticular fractures, ligament injuries or meniscus injuries. In this case, surgery or conservative treatment must be performed in a timely manner.

3. Rheumatoid arthritis. It is an inflammatory type of arthritis. In the early stage, it is mainly characterized by synovitis of the joints, which then erodes the articular cartilage, causing serious loss of joint function. In the late clinical symptoms of osteoarthritis, severe deformities remain. Rheumatoid arthritis can occur at any age, but is more common in young people and usually affects the knees.