Clinical Resource: What is Ankle Arthritis?

Ankle arthritis is actually a really unique problem. Most arthritis cells elsewhere in the body like a shoulder, hip or knee is kind  of a degenerative related problem but ankle arthritis really more often than not is more  of a post-traumatic problem meaning someone’s

had an injury in the past and it damages the  cartilage which continues to worsen over time and lead to this so it’s usually kind of a different  animal, When we talk about arthritis of the ankle there are two major procedures whether this is an  ankle fusion or an ankle replacement it’s more of an in-depth discussion but here at UAMS we’re  able to offer both of those options and not only that we’re working on a large randomized  control trial with our ankle replacements so we know that we’re giving you the best outcome. Ankle  arthritis usually starts very subtly it’s kind of a dull ache in the center of your ankle usually  it’s worse going up and down hills as the ankle joint tries to planter flex or dorsiflex and come  up and down slowly in time this will become more and more of a daily problem rather than a once  a week problem. Eventually the size of the ankle joint can swell and you can have some redness  as well. So those are all the things you really want to look out for when talking about ankle  arthritis. Patients should come see me whenever they’re ready. There’s no good or bad time to  talk about arthritis. If nothing else there are a few things we can do non-operative wise with  steroid injections, bracing or physical therapy protocols and when the time comes that’s kind  of a discussion between patient and doctor to

proceed with surgery. For patients who have  ankle arthritis the one thing I want them to know is that they don’t have to live with it.  This is one of the surgeries that we do that typically gets patients pain-free reliably and is  available whenever they’re ready for it.