Arthritis – is it common to old age people only?

 Live long enough and you can pretty much count on developing arthritis: a touch of osteoarthritis, at the very least.
Osteoarthritis is the form of Arthritis, misnamed ‘wear and tear’ arthritis – that a good many people think is the only form of disease
Arthritis  actually consists of more than 100 different conditions. These can be anything from relatively mild forms of tendinitis (as in 'tennis elbow') and bursitis to crippling systemic forms, such as rheumatoid arthritis. There are pain syndromes like fibromyalgia and arthritis-related disorders, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, that involve every part of the body. There are forms of the disease, such as gout, which almost nobody connects with arthritis, and there are special form such as Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA).

 Arthritis – Common Denominator

 True, many older people do have arthritis, but it's not just a disease of the old. Some forms of arthritis affect children still in diapers, while thousands of people are stricken in the prime of their lives. The common denominator for all these conditions is joint and musculoskeletal pain, which is why they are grouped together as 'arthritis.' Often that pain is a result of inflammation of the joint lining.

 Inflammation is involved in most form of arthritis. Inflammation, in fact, is a system created by nature to prevent further damage to the injured body part. For example if a joint receives an injury (may be a sports injury), the system immediately sends cells to prevent and cure that injury. With these cells that part of body gets inflamed and has the symptoms of redness, swelling, heat and pain. This inflammation forces us to give rest to that body part so that the same can be recovered from injury.

 When this inflammation gets developed without injury or remains developed even after the injury is cured, it forms arthritis. This inflammation can be due to system malfunctioning or body cells giving wrong signal causing inflammation.

Like temporary inflammation, permanent inflammation can prevent the normal use of the joint and therefore it can cause the loss of function of that joint.

 There are more than 100 joints connecting the body's 206 bones. Most of the major bone connections in the body are joints designed to allow a broad range of motion. There are different kinds for different functions: ball-and-socket (hips and shoulders), saddle joints (which connect thumb to hand), hinge joints (fingers and knees) or pivot joints (wrists).

Arthritis at Knee Joint

 There are numerous reasons known and unknown causing this malfunctioning of our system which results in inflammation and joint pain.

Since our topic is Psoriatic Arthritis, we will remain focus on this special form of Arthritis.