geoffrey modest medical blogs

  Another article on hand arthritis found that short-term use of Occupational Therapy in those with carpal metacarpal osteoarthritis (CMC OA) provided major symptomatic benefit (see   hand OA occup therapy helps ArthCareRes2022  in dropbox or DOI 10.1002/acr.2454)    Details:  -- Norwegian study of 180 patients who had CMC OA of the first carpal metacarpal joint and had been referred for surgical consultation at 3 rheumatology departments were randomized to multimodal Occupational Therapy versus OA information while they were waiting for their surgical appointment      -- multimodal Occupational Therapy included patient education, exercises (8 exercises for maintaining and increasing joint mobility, grip strength, and stability of the wrist and finger joints, with instructions to exercise at home 3 times/ week), orthoses (both a daytime and nighttime orthosis, commonly a Push Race for the daytime orthosis to increase CMC joint stabi...

  A recent article assessed the prevalence, incidence, and progression of both radiologic and symptomatic hand osteoarthritis (see  hand OA prevalence and progression ArthRheum2022  in dropbox, or   https://doi.org/10.1002/art.42076     Details:  -- 3588 participants were selected from four clinical sites (Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, Ohio State University, University of Maryland/Johns Hopkins University, and University of Pittsburgh), from February 2004 to May 2006  -- this cohort was selected initially of individuals at risk of knee OA (though excluding those with end-stage knee OA or inflammatory rheumatic disease), from the Osteoarthritis Initiative  -- at baseline, posteroanterior radiographs of one or both hands were obtained along with questions about hand symptoms  -- radiological OA was defined as a Kellgren/Lawrence (K/L) score of at least 2 (this is cutpoint for definition of OA)      -- K/L score 1: ...