HELP with patho..>< Osteoarthritis & Peripheral Neuropathy.. how are they related??

[miniangel729]

i need to do a concept map for my pt..

she's a 79 y/o female with osteoarthritis(djd) & 79 y/o peripheral neuropathy.

co-morbid include..

htn, hyperlipidemia

h/o gastritis,

chronic renal deficiency secondary to nephrosclerosis and htn

h/o of aortic insufficiency.

our instructor want us to do a map on the main illness for the patient, so i already did one for the djd.

for the second map i want to do on the peripheral neuropathy because i think thats what caused djd.

but i am having troubling connecting the two together..

neuropathy is one of the risk factor for the osteoarthritis.. but why and how does it cause it??

does djd cause peripheral neuropathy..or the other way around...?

i can't find the pathophysiology behind it..

also, i am not even sure what type of peripheral neuropathy the patient have..>

there are so many types!

the rotation is at nursing home, so the information i could get is very limited.

i know she doesn't drink, and doesn't have diabetes. so alcoholic & diabetic neuropathy is out of the question..

could it be idiopathic that comes with aging?

my professor like us to have very detail pathophysiology.. "down to the cellular level" >

can someone help explain it to me.. or teach me where i can look up the informations..

i've tried 2 med-surge txt bks.. and couldn't find a decent explaination.

and none of them explain the connection between the two illness. =(

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

Loss of the joint structures can put pressure on the nerve roots especially in the spine and lead to the peripheral neuropathy. Make sure you have combed through her chart and other causes of the PN have been ruled out as you have stated there are many causes for this. Are you stuck with doing PN or can you choose another disease Sometimes MDs can not find the cause themselves and pts ahve to go through many hoops to get a diagnosis. I am taking care of one lady and it took them 2.5 years just to get a dx on her PN.

[miniangel729]

i've gone through what i can..page by page, and that is all i can get : (

i talked to my professor about it, she wants me to figure out how PN can related to that.....>

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

i put together all kinds of weblinks that have medical disease information on them on this sticky thread: https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/medical-disease-information-258109.html - medical disease information/treatment/procedures/test reference websites. websites where you are likely to find this kind of information are in the articles on emedicine, the merck manual and family practice notebook. if you can get specific information you can do a web search for more.

• http://www.fpnotebook.com/neuro/sx/prphrlnrpthy.htm - the peripheral neuropathy page on family practice notebook with interesting information on the different pathophysiologies; joints are mentioned (demyelinating or infiltrative neuropathy). these are only thumbnail lists but does give you a direction to continue on. there are also links at the left side of the page to go to pages with more information.
  
• http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec16/ch223/ch223h.html - peripheral neuropathy
  

[miniangel729]

thanks for the links! they were really helpful. =]

I end up doing a uremic neuropathy due to the chronic renal deficiency secondary to nephrosclerosis and HTN.. because it seemed like PN is more commonly caused by rheumatoid arthritis not DJD...