Research Article
Asawari Raut, Dipak H. Sutar,
Abstract
Pharmacists have expanded their roles in practice settings and now serve as integral members of an interdisciplinary health care system. Screening and risk assessment services provided by pharmacist are common and routinely performed for a range of chronic disease conditions. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative disorder of multifactorial etiology requiring medical care and is an important antecedent to disability. The purpose of the camp was screening of Osteoarthritis patients with the objective of ‘Knee Help’. Osteoarthritis camp was organised by a team of orthopaedic surgeons which recruited patients of age group between 30yrs-70yrs, both male and female. Inclusion criteria consisted of patients presenting with joint pain and movement restriction whereas, patients who have undergone total knee replacement surgery were excluded respectively. Detailed history interview was conducted to access patients with osteoarthritis and WOMAC Osteoarthritis Index (Western Ontario and McMaster University) was used to access pain and physical function. A total of 105 patients were screened for Osteoarthritis out of which 55 patients were suspected of OA. From the suspected 55 patients, 31were male and 24were female. Most commonest etiologies observed were age factor and anaemic condition as OA being a chronic disease of multifactorial etiology. According to the WOMAC index, patients with mild to moderate assessment of disease were referred to as primary osteoarthritic patients. Age factor being common etiology for Osteoarthritis, contributes to the male dominance for the same. Pharmacist being an integral part of the health care system plays a major role in identification and screening of such chronic conditions to provide better patient care and also as early detection of these chronic conditions increases the opportunity for a number of interventions to be applied that may potentially decelerate the progression of the disease.