Osteoarthritis Case Study

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Pages: 4

Introduction

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the degeneration of articular cartilage and bone, generally affecting joints in the hands, knees, hips, and spine (Arthritis Foundation, 2011). Articular cartilage covers the ends of bones within a joint. This cartilage acts as a low friction load bearing surface to protect the underlying bone. This surface helps to cushion the forces incurred with mechanical loading on the joints. The Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (2017) states factors such as age, genes, weight, and repeated injuries certainly attribute to the development of arthritis. However, it is still controversial whether excessive overuse such as long distance running has a significant effect on its development.
According to the Arthritis Foundation, osteoarthritis affects approximately 27 million Americans, making it the most chronic condition that affects the joints (2011). Osteoarthritis contributes substantially to physical disability and impaired living among older adults. For some time now, the relationship of physical activity to the development and
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The search was conducted using specific keywords in conjunction with Boolean operators. The first search was obtained by using the set: ((osteoarthritis OR arthritis) AND (long distance running OR marathon)), this search set resulted in 2,920 articles. The keyword “knee” was then searched within the results of the first set, this narrowed it down further to 1,617 articles. The following inclusion criteria were then selected: “full text”, “peer-reviewed”, “humans”, “English”, and a date range was set between 2007 and 2017, this produced 456 search results. To narrow the search down even more the subject terms “adult” and “middle aged” were selected, this final inclusion obtained 249 articles. The researcher then selected five articles that were of most relevance to the research question and that met the above