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Osteoarthritis of the shoulder and elbow joints
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
Osteoarthritis is one of the causes of pain and dysfunction of the temporomandibular joint. Most often, secondary osteoarthritis of this joint occurs against the background of inflammatory arthropathies.
Osteoarthritis-specific changes in the sternoclavicular joint are often discovered as an incidental finding. These changes are rarely clinically evident. Osteoarthritis is a common cause of pain in the acromioclavicular joint. The patient, as a rule, cannot accurately determine the source of the pain and characterizes it as "shoulder pain". When examining the joint area, pain is detected over its projection; sometimes an osteophyte can be palpated over the upper pole.
Osteoarthritis of the shoulder joint is rare and occurs mainly in elderly women. The main symptoms of osteoarthritis of the shoulder joint are pain during movement and palpation, painful limitation of movement, especially difficulty raising the arm and external rotation. Radiographs show "classic" radiographic symptoms of osteoarthritis, often with large osteophytes in the area of the lower pole of the glenoid fossa.
The elbow joint is rarely affected by osteoarthritis. Men are more often affected than women, and the process usually involves the humero-ulnar part of this complex joint. Pain syndrome in osteoarthritis of the elbow joint is usually not expressed (sometimes absent), the main signs of the disease are fixed flexion of the joint, crepitus and limited range of motion.
Although the ankle joint is frequently injured and bears a lot of stress, it is rarely affected by osteoarthritis.
In women of any age (especially middle-aged and elderly), hallux valgus can often be detected - the result of wearing narrow shoes with high heels. This deformation is usually accompanied by OA of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the first toe. Osteoarthritis of this localization itself rarely manifests itself clinically, pain in the joint area is usually caused by secondary inflammation of the joint capsule.
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