Biomechanical analysis of walking and osteoarthritis of the knee

Osteoarthritis, which has been defined as cartilage material properties change and lose of its integrity is a global, dynamic and slow inflammatory disease.
Cartilage function makes movement and gait possible, because its structure and properties diffuse energy and mechanical load from surface to volume into the bones, the soft tissues and finally the ground.
But mechanical overload and stress increase energy diffusion into cartilage, synovial tissue and subchondral bone. The system is going into an unstable and unbalanced state which affects the cartilage surface first, then deeper with fissures and fractures that increase its sensibility to disruption by overload with an expansion of the calcified cartilage zone.
In trying to repair this system, chondrocytes are getting hypertrophic with an increased synthetic activity, but they generate degradation molecules and inflammatory mediators. In the same way, synoviocytes also proliferate with hypertrophied tissues, vascularity, inflammation and change in lubrication. In the subchondral bone, vessels, nerves and bone activity are going to replace the cartilage. Overload, stress and biomechanical factors change bone remodelling and osteophytes.
Overtime reaction to overload and hyper energy diffusion leads to articulation destruction.