Post Traumatic Arthritis
Any injury or ankle trauma or trauma to the foot can lead to arthritis in the ankle joint, Arthritis caused due to trauma or injury is called post-traumatic arthritis.
Fracture and dislocations of the joint can also cause post-traumatic ankle arthritis. Post-traumatic arthritis causes cartilage damage or wearing of the cartilage, it can develop even after many years of the injury.
Causes
- Injury to the ankle joint
- Trauma to the ankle joint
- Dislocation
- Fracture
Symptoms:
- Pain in the joint movement
- Pain aggravates during ankle movements
- Pain aggravated by vigorous movements
- Tenderness around the ankle joint
- Swelling around the ankle joint
- Popping sound in the ankle joint
- Pain and difficulty in walking
Diagnosis
- Examination of the complete body and symptoms help a lot in making a diagnosis
- X-ray: It is a more specific investigation to know if there is any bony injury and joint space
- MRI: To check for any soft tissue damage, if required
Treatment
- Conservative:
- Changes in your lifestyle like take rest, don’t put weight on the affected ankle
- Do activities with low impact like swimming or cycling instead of activities with high impact like jogging or playing tennis or basketball etc.
- Try to control or lose your excess body weight
- Use ankle braces or ankle support
- Medications to reduce pain and swelling like ibuprofen
- Physiotherapy exercises movement improvement of the joint and to enhance muscle strength
- Operative:
- Arthroscopy to clean damaged part and to remove the loose body and bone spurs
- Fusion of the joint (Arthrodesis)
- Arthroplasty surgery for the ankle or complete replacement of the knee joint