Assessment
History
The patient presents with knee pain and the radiographs have shown degenerative changes which suggest degenerative joint disease-osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is the most common clinical presentation in orthopaedics. Although the most probable causes of the patients symptoms is osteoarthritis, a full history and examination is required to exclude other possible causes such as inflammatory arthritis and trauma. In addition to the site of the pain the patient presents with it is important to elicit; the severity, periodicity (if continuous or intermittent), exacerbating and alleviating factors and if night pain is present. Instead of talking about what to elicit, talk about the clinical features and symptoms. The onset of the pain is of importance particularly when the pain is at its worse, what time of day and what the patient was doing at this time. Morning stiffness may be present. In inflammatory joint disease such as rheumatoid arthritis this often lasts......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: Osteoarthritis
Approximate Word Count: 1944
Approximate Pages: 8 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on Osteoarthritis, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!