Joint issues
Staying active is a top priority for many older adults, but aging muscles and joints often interfere. Recent findings suggest that 40% of people over 70 suffer from osteoarthritis of the knee, of whom 80% have some limitation of movement and 25% are unable to perform major activities of daily life. And while the incidence and prevalence of osteoarthritis are increasing—it's already the most common kind of arthritis—there is no cure, and there are no known treatments that can predictably slow progression of the disease.
Enter the Alberta Osteoarthritis Interdisciplinary Team. Its goal is to reduce the burden of osteoarthritis through an integrated research plan aimed at understanding the mechanisms behind the disease, improving prevention, developing new treatments, and improving health services for osteoarthritis patients. Dr. Cy Frank, an orthopaedic surgeon and University of Calgary professor, is co-leader of the research team.
"There's been a lot of emphasis on joint replacement in the news," he says. "While some members of our team are looking at improving replacement and rehabilitation from replacement, our end goal is to eliminate joint replacement by early diagnosis and proper treatment of osteoarthritis. But right now, there is no early diagnosis, the causes are not entirely known, and there are different pathways that can lead to osteoarthritis. So it's a big job."
The team began its research in 2008, and Dr. Frank is hopeful for a series of ground-breaking advances in osteoarthritis by the end of the team's five-year term. He believes that improved diagnostics will be a huge step forward for osteoarthritis treatment. There is evidence that many injuries set the process of cartilage destruction in motion (the hallmark of osteoarthritis), which current diagnostic tools cannot detect. Imaging techniques such as x-ray and magnetic resonance imaging fall short. "We believe there are changes in the joints and blood that are early markers of cartilage destruction. My hope is that we can develop a blood test to diagnose the problem and maybe even predict the course of the disease.
"Alberta is on the leading edge of improving access to health services for people with osteoarthritis. It's realistic to think that, in five years, patients here will be better diagnosed and treated earlier than anywhere else in Canada. We can go from the lab to the bedside much faster because we have a provincial network for bone and joint health. I see Alberta as a hotbed for translating the knowledge we gain from research in bone and joint problems into clinical practice and policy changes."