Question

Describe one or two genetic, ethnic, cultural, or lifestyle variations that might necessitate a change in the customary pharmacological or nonpharmacological management of osteoarthritis and pain that it causes (from mild to severe, disabling pain).

Answer 1

Osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Pain is the primary symptom of the disease.

Hereditary has great influence in transmitting the disease to next generation than general population. it is possible that there is a heritable component to the disease. Heritability refers to the extent that genetic variation determines variation of a trait of interest, such as the development of OA

Genetic variants implicated in pain sensitivity have been shown to be significantly different between asymptomatic radiographic cases of OA and symptomatic cases. These involves amino acid change variants in COMT, SCN9A and TRPV1. These results suggest that the genetic risk of clinical OA is influenced by the genetic contribution to pain sensitivity.

Cultural factors influence beliefs, behaviour, perceptions and emotions, all of which have important implications on health and health care.

The cultural values or disvalues the display of emotions, postural mobility or verbal expression in response to pain or injury. Some cultural groups expect an extravagant display of emotion in the presence of pain, but others not exhibit, restraint and playing down the pain.

Many people with osteoarthritis also experience fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety, depression, social isolation, loss of work, financial difficulty and a general deterioration in quality of life.

Increasing ethnic diversity means clinicians are regularly required to meet the needs of people from different cultures and offer culturally relevant health care. Hence there is a growing necessity to understand the influence of race and ethnicity in pain management. Cross-cultural differences are evident in many aspects of human behaviour and in the prevalence of illness and in healthcare usage.