When discover the possibility of having joint problems when you experience pain. Pain is a common symptom that ordinary people easily notice, but there are also many other signs of joint diseases that indicate different conditions. Joint health can be evaluated from four dimensions.
Look at the color of joint
The skin around the joints should normally appear yellowish with slight wrinkles.
If the skin around the joint becomes red, it could be due to acute trauma, joint inflammation, or gout. Other conditions such as skin infections, burns, or sunburn can also cause localized redness accompanied by swelling, pain, and heat. If the skin around the joint appears purple, it could be due to prolonged bruising after acute trauma or blood disorders.
If the skin around the joint appears pale, it could be due to vasoconstriction, spasms, or insufficient blood flow caused by cold temperatures. In extreme cases, the skin may even appear bluish.
Apart from color, the skin around the joint should be soft, smooth, moist, slightly wrinkled, and elastic, returning to its original state quickly after being pressed. Some people may have darker skin around the joint, especially at the elbows and knees, which is considered normal. The elbows and knees often have melanin deposits, resulting in darkening of the skin when the arm or leg is extended and appearing similar to the surrounding skin when bent. Along with darkening, the skin around the elbows and knees may have a certain degree of roughness, which is also considered normal. However, if the wrinkles disappear or there is swelling, it may indicate joint edema or swelling.
Listen to the sound of joint
Under normal circumstances, joints do not produce sounds during movement. However, if there are sounds, there is no need to worry as joint popping can be categorized as physiological or pathological.
- Physiological joint popping refers to the momentary sound that occurs when a joint transitions from a stationary position to sudden movement. It generally does not cause pain or hinder movements. Especially when the popping only happens once and does not recur frequently, it poses little harm to the body. Physiological joint popping often occurs in the knees when squatting, the lumbar spine, thoracic spine, and shoulder joints during stretching, as well as the interphalangeal joints of the fingers during movements.
- Pathological joint popping is caused by joint injury, diseases, or structural variations that result in rough synovium, loose joint capsule and ligaments, tendon hypertrophy or tendon sheath narrowing, ruptured meniscus, or cartilage detachment. Patients with these conditions may experience popping sounds during movement due to tissue friction. Pathological joint popping can be classified into osteogenic, synovial, tendon-related, and other types based on the underlying causes. The sounds can be crisp, muffled, or gritty, often accompanied by pain or discomfort, and may occur continuously.
Feel the movement of the joint
Joint pain often accompanies a state of limited mobility, which may be related to infectious arthritis (such as bacterial infection), inflammatory diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis), trauma (such as fractures or dislocations), and other factors. Conditions like shoulder impingement and arthritis can cause adhesions within the joint, while fractures and dislocations can create bony obstructions within the joint. Burns and injuries can lead to joint contracture, or it may simply be a reflexive protective response to the pain resulting in joint immobility. Over time, these factors can restrict joint movement.
When tendons and ligaments around the joint are affected, it can also result in weakness during joint movement. For example, rotator cuff injuries can cause weakness in shoulder abduction and external rotation, and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries can cause weakness in squatting with the knee joint.
Feel the touch of the joints
There is another abnormality in joint dynamics, which is excessive hypermobility. This is actually a problem that is easily overlooked, such as elbow hyperextension and knee hyperextension. Those who pay attention to their posture may notice that knee hyperextension affects the aesthetics of the legs when standing. In addition to the impact on appearance, excessive joint hyperextension can also lead to chronic local pain, weakness, joint instability, and other symptoms. If the knee joint continues to move in a hyperextended state, it can easily result in more severe conditions such as joint sprains, ligament tears, meniscus injuries, and fractures. Patients with joint hyperextension should promptly correct poor posture, avoid excessive joint movements, and strengthen the muscles around the hyperextended joint through training to increase joint stability.
Abnormalities can also be determined by the tactile sensation when touching the joint. For example, whether there is a sense of fluctuation upon touch can indicate the presence of joint effusion. Local tenderness during palpation can indicate inflammation or trauma. Changes in local skin temperature can indicate whether the disease is in an acute phase or has entered a stable phase.
You can place your palm or fingers lightly on the joint being examined to feel the temperature, detect any subtle tremors or pulsations, and assess other sensations. Then, by performing sliding and palpation movements of the metacarpophalangeal and wrist joints, you can identify any tenderness or other abnormal sensations in the patient's joints, which can help determine the presence of joint effusion and other conditions.
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