By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 7 Aug: On the occasion of Indian Orthopaedic Association’s Bone & Joint Week, Sanjay Orthopaedic, Spine & Maternity Centre and SHEWA society organised a week long programme from 1to 7 August that included free surgery on 1 August, webinar on 2 August, TV programmes on 3 August, free consultation on 4 August, interview and panel discussion over radio, 5 August, Free surgery on 6-7 August, etc. Founder President of the Uttarakhand Chapter of Indian Orthopaedic Association Dr BKS Sanjay said that this year IOA’s theme was “prevention of deformity in degenerative disease”.
According to him, the scenario of orthopaedic practice has changed a lot in the last 40 years. Earlier, the patients came for mainly treatment of developmental deformity, paralysis due to infections like Polio and TB, and for fracture related complications. But, nowadays, OPD attendance is usually of patients of chronic musculoskeletal pain, complications of road traffic accidents and degenerative problems. Conscious and unconscious effort could reduce the pace of this degeneration. Yoga could play an important role.
Degenerative joint disease, which is also referred to as osteoarthritis (OA), is a common “wear and tear” disease that occurs when the cartilage that serves as a cushion in the joints, wears out. This condition can affect any joint but is most common in knees, hands, hips and spine. Dr Gaurav Sanjay emphasised that people should take iron and calcium rich balanced diet and should do more physical work as far as possible on daily basis. In addition to that, people should do yoga on regular basis. Yoga is also a no cost immunity booster.
When the patients of degenerative bone and joint diseases become symptomatic and in early stage, they can be treated conservatively with use of heat, massage, exercises and mild painkiller drugs. When patients cannot be treated conservatively, they need surgery. Dr Gaurav said that the results of surgery are quite predictable nowadays whether it is realignment or replacement in knee surgery, total joint replacement in hip surgery and decompression and fusion in spine surgery.
