[General therapeutic principles of osteoarthritis]

New approaches in the treatment of osteoarthritis are possible and necessary, based on new advances. It is a disease which can be in part prevented and treated. We are often able to insure a primary prevention, to give treatments which can reduce pain and disability, the main clinical features. To reduce the risk factors, to organize a psychosocial support (by phone contacts against loneliness), to inform patients and to use all the nonpharmacologic physical therapies must be at the foreground. A real prevention of this major health care problem and the researches to identify new treatments active on both symptoms and anatomical lesions concern searchers and clinicians as well as politic and public health authorities.