{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03356247472705216, 'fraction_numerical': 0.010513546300040437, 'mean_word_length': 4.753488372093023, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Developments in osteoarthritis.

Perhaps the most important change in OA over the past 60 years has been in attitudes rather than knowledge. OA has changed from being a boring, degenerative form of joint pathology, for which nothing could be done [1, 2], to an exciting clinical disorder of the joints that can be manipulated and improved [3, 4]. Unfortunately, that change has yet to be fully embraced or understood by all the health-care professionals dealing with musculo-skeletal disorders, or by the vast numbers of people in the community with pain and disability associated with their OA. However, as perception is everything, one of our major current challenges is to spread the word.. OA has become exciting. This change in attitude has resulted from the introduction of new technologies—such as MRI and biomarkers for OA—and from clinical research in patients and populations. New technologies leading to new concepts Until relatively recently, there were only two ways of looking at joints affected by OA: X-rays [5] or gross anatomy [1]. A striking pathological feature of joints affected by OA is focal areas of cartilage destruction. If advanced, this leads to joint space narrowing on the X-ray. Therefore, we should not be surprised that interest in OA centred on this destruction of articular cartilage, as all we had to go on was X-ray changes and gross pathology. Arguably, however, that obsession with pathology, X-rays and cartilage damage, which was led from the UK, and that stretched from the 1950s to the beginning of this century [1, 5, 6], set the field back, perpetuating a negative view of the condition among clinicians. Newer imaging modalities, including bone scans and MRI [7], as well as biomarkers [8], have made it abundantly clear that the OA process affects all joint tissues, and, along with more sophisticated approaches to pathology, have shown us that it is an active repair process and not purely a degenerative or destructive one [9, 10, 11].. OA is not a cartilage problem [10].. OA is not a degenerative disorder [11]. During the years of focus on articular cartilage, fundamental research into OA was dominated by biochemists and cellular biologists who did wonders in sorting out the biology of cartilage, but largely failed to understand that OA is primarily a mechanical problem. There was a failure to appreciate the importance of the old observation that OA pathology is focal, not generalized, and that the damage only …