CLINICAL FINDINGS AND EPIDEMIOLOGY OF OST EOARTHRITIS

Osteoarthritis is one of the common chronic diseases. It occurs mainly the upper extremity. In the following on the one hand an epidemiologi cal survey is given, On the other hand typical clinical findings and s ynovial analysis are reported. Furthermore possibilities of early clin ical detection are discussed. Of special interest were the Altman ACR criteria for osteoarthrosis. We could show that the diagnosis is as ac curate with the ACR criteria as well as the far more extensive Lequesn e and Tegner-Lysholm Score. Analysis of the investigations over the ye ars revealed clearly different results in the frequency of osteoarthro sis. Our investigations show that valuable criteria exist for detectio n of early osteoarthrosis. However deficits for observing its course a re apparent.