Dr. Sharon Kolasinski: Grand Round Presentation on Treatment of Patients with Osteoarthritis, Part 1

Dr. Sharon Kolasinski is a professor of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Part 1

Her objectives in the presentation are to help listeners by learning about evidence-based treatment for patients with osteoarthritis (OA), to understand the process by which guidelines are developed that might help us figure out our evidence-based approach, to review the recommended treatments for OA, and to review some treatments that are not recommended for OA. Her basic evidence-based reference is a University of Pennsylvania guideline that was published in 2020. Numerous other guidelines are available, which she described. She discussed her work with a case involving a 55-year-old male patient. He arrived for routine follow-up care for immunosuppressive medication monitoring. He described pains that he was experiencing and was diagnosed with OA. She indicated the impacts OA has on patients. Clinicians find it a daunting challenge to provide satisfactory treatment. For example, for some clinicians, the guidelines do not appear to be clear and provide a roadmap. Also, they do not always believe in the recommendations contained in the guidelines. In this presentation, she wants to see if she can change some minds about guidelines. She provided an example based on investigations conducted at her institution. The outcome was a series of recommendations that she described.

Part 2

Dr. Kolasinski began Part 2 of her presentation by continuing to focus on the importance of having patients with OA engage in physical activity. She stated that “they are worn out and the implication is that a doctor is needed to fix them.” Perhaps a perspective should be taken of a more participatory discourse where we encourage physical therapy and emphasize that physical exercise is safe when you have arthritis and focus on what the patient can do, empowering them to exercise. A starting point is to give patients a physical therapy prescription. She discussed the extent to which physical therapy is useful, along with indicating how much and how frequently exercise is beneficial (e.g., for 20 minutes, three times a week). Losing weight is an effective way of reducing symptoms. Food choices can affect OA symptoms. Diet and exercise used together can produce effective results. References were made to several studies that involve the status of steroid injections on improving patient health status. Acupuncture also was mentioned. She indicated conditional recommendations on the use of pharmacological interventions. She concluded by describing how to treat the 55-year-old patient she mentioned in Part 1 of her presentation.