Raena Morgan: Hello, I'm talking with Dr. JaDean Anderson. Dr. Anderson, how does chiropractic affect the pain of arthritis? Dr. JaDean Anderson: Arthritis is a very common condition that we see with a lot of patients. Usually people, when they think of arthritis, think of bad hands that don't function right anymore. But, lots of times, we see what's called osteoarthritis take place within the spine. What happens with osteoarthritis is there's decreased movement within the joints, in patient's back and that causes the lack of motion causes the space in-between each vertebrae slowly degenerate and eventually come in osteoarthritis. So, how we slow the osteoarthritis progression is through adjustments restoring proper nerve flow and proper movement within the joints helps keep the joints healthy. Raena Morgan: Well, that's an interesting picture that you paint because most of us do think of joints being swollen and hands not moving very well and knees not moving very well, shoulder's not being stiff and that sort of thing. But, you're saying it's in the spine. Dr. JaDean Anderson: At lots of times, obviously, there are arthritis conditions within the other joints in the body, but specifically what we see a lot of arthritis problems within the spine itself and restoring the proper nerve function to the extremities of the arms or feet or knees is going to help patients decrease the pain that they feel in those areas as well. In lots of cases depending on the severity of the osteoarthritis within the patient's spine, the more severe cases sometimes the joints within the spine actually start to fuse together; which is going to, in turn, hinder their flexibility, like you said, to where it's hard for them to bend over and touch their toes or tie their shoes or even put their socks on. And, in other cases, with minimal osteoarthritis, located within the spine, the symptoms are very minimal where they just might have some stiffness in the morning, and it kind of subsides as the day goes. Raena Morgan: Thank you, Dr. Anderson.