Thumb-base osteoarthritis; blood biomarkers and Alzheimer's diagnostics; Aged Care Commission expectations; better childbirth experiences for Indigenous women ; Q&A
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What is thumb‑base osteoarthritis and why does it affect older women?
This is an ABC podcast.
Hello and welcome to this week's Health Report Podcast with me, Norman Swann.
And me, Tegan Tyler.
Today?
Birthing on country is better for First Nations mothers and their babies, so why isn't it more widespread?
Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease with a blood test, it's getting closer. A simple solution for some of the deadliest problems in residential aged care. And a joint you wouldn't normally think is prone to osteoarthritis, but it is and it's not well treated. It's arthritis at the base of your thumb. And a group at the University of Sydney have done a study to improve the effectiveness of care. Dr. Letitia DeVeza is a rheumatologist and researcher at the Institute of Bone and Joint. Research at the Colling Institute.
Bem base ostearthritis is a very common joint disease that mostly affects older women. The prevalence is really high, so about one third of women over seventy years of age have osteoarthritis at the base of the thumb. The symptoms are mostly pain at the base of the thumb. in difficulties to do things involving the hand so such as opening jazz, writing, and common activities that we do on a daily basis.
Why women and is it ordinary osteoarthritis or is it another condition altogether?
This is osteoarthritis, the condition that we are describing. Women probably because of hormonal factors, and the condition usually occurs after menopause. So that's usually related to hormonal changes.
So it's quite disabling in many women. And how's it been treated in the past?
Currently the treatment for thermase osteoarthritis is based on painkillers advise to modify the way that people do their activities involving their hands in surgery as at the last resort.
Is surgery a joint replacement?
Yeah, there are different types of surgery. One of the most common one is uh removing a piece of the bone, trapezectomy, and that aims to relieve symptoms.
So what were you trying to do in this study?
We try to find a treatment strategy with a greater benefit. We do have other treatment options such as exercises, anti inflammatories and splint. In isolation they provide small benefits. And we aim to test whether Combining these treatments would provide a greater benefit compared to education about the disease and the ergonomic principles. And the anti inflammatory that we used was a gel.
And when you say ergonomic principles, this is like using a device to open up a jar, a thicker handle for your bread knife and things like that.
Exactly.
What did you find?
So we found that people in the intervention group had better improvements in terms of hanging function after three months.
So what did they notice? 'Cause it's fine to have a research study which measures things on a scale, but what did the women notice that was better in the intervention group?
We asked them how they were feeling after six weeks and after twelve weeks, and about seventy percent of people in the intervention group they reported that they were feeling significantly better in terms of the pain, the functions, or the ability of using the hands and the health overall. It took a little bit more time for us to see an effect in pain. Function was better at six and twelve weeks, but pain took a little bit more time. So that suggests that we should persist and encourage patients to continue using the treatments even if they don't find the treatments are that beneficial in the beginning. So if they keep using the treatments they might get better by three months.
So is this a therapy that's needs to continue forever or can you stop it and hope for lasting effects?
It's a chronic condition. What we saw in the trial is that people were able to self-manage their condition after the first three months. So we had another follow-up at six months. The function, so the ability of using the hands, continued to improve and pain got slightly worse after these six months, probably because they were not using the
How effective are combined hand‑exercises, splints and anti‑inflammatory gel for thumb‑base OA?
whole treatment so the four interventions, but they were still a lot better compared to at the beginning of the trial.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is thumb‑base osteoarthritis and why does it affect older women?
0:02–4:06
2
How effective are combined hand‑exercises, splints and anti‑inflammatory gel for thumb‑base OA?
4:06–8:13
3
Can a blood‑based tau biomarker reliably predict future Alzheimer’s disease?
8:13–13:19
4
Why are blood‑based Alzheimer’s tests considered the “holy grail” of diagnosis?
13:19–18:00
5
How can existing medication‑administration data improve safety in residential aged care?
18:00–22:28
6
What did the aged‑care study reveal about antipsychotic use in facilities?
22:28–26:28
7
Why does “Birthing on Country” improve outcomes for Indigenous mothers and babies?
26:28–29:46
8
What are the listeners’ top health questions answered in the mailbag segment?
29:46–32:47
Speakers
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