Joint Pain and Injury Treatment Options

Healthy joints are critical to lifelong mobility. Timely treatment of simple and complex joint problems can help keep you moving.

Michael Decker, MD, orthopaedic surgeon, talks about joint pain and joint injuries and the range of treatment options available. Dr. Decker also discusses both nonsurgical and surgical joint treatments and the advantages of seeking treatment from Froedtert & MCW orthopaedic specialists.

Why are joint-related issues so common?

Joints are very complex structures that makes them prone to overuse injuries. Once an injury happens or pain occurs, it's really important to get early intervention to try to maintain or maybe even improve your level of function. Though it most commonly happens to weight-bearing joints such as the hip, knee or ankle, it can also happen to the non-weight-bearing joints such as the wrist, elbow, shoulder and many others.

Treatment Options for Joint Pain

So as an academic health network, we have a number of subspecialty trained providers - physicians and non-physicians — who can provide a range of treatments from rehabilitation services to nonsurgical treatments all the way through surgery, if necessary.

Nonsurgical Options for Joint Problems

Nonsurgical options also have a wide range from medication management, to a number of different types of injections for pain control or potentially help to heal a joint, to physical and occupational therapy, gait training and strength training all in the hopes of improving the function of a joint.

Surgical Options to Treat Joint Problems

There are another wide range of options for surgical intervention as well, from minimally invasive procedures all the way through more open complex procedures, from the more traditional techniques to now robotics so we can be more precise and accurate with how we do our operations. And though we used to have to admit patients to the hospital for an extended stay after surgery, now we're able to get them home the same day so they can recover in the most comfortable home environment.