Diabetes mellitus-related musculoskeletal disorders: Unveiling the cluster of diseases

Abstract

The current study ushers in a comprehensive review in clinical research to demonstrate the prevalence of musculoskeletal (MSK) complications in diabetes mellitus and the most relevant clinical aspects. In particular, revealing the early symptoms of the disorders, the pathology lurking behind the complications and their optimal management. In diabetes mellitus, MSK complications are common and are largely due to similar pathogenetic factors responsible for the internal organ complications associated with diabetes leading to chronic low-intensity inflammatory processes. MSK disorders develop by vasculopathy, neuropathy, arthropathy or combinations of the above, which are not specific to diabetes. However, their prevalence is significantly increased in diabetes and contributes to the disability impairing patients' quality of life. Locomotor disease affects approximately 34.4–83.5 % of patients suffering from type-2 diabetes mellitus. Several musculoskeletal abnormalities (cheiroarthropathy, Dupuytren's contracture, trigger finger, ect.) can be diagnosed upon physical examination, although certain symptoms (frozen shoulder, neurogenic arthropathy, septic arthritis, etc.) require differential diagnostic considerations. Early identification regarding characteristic symptoms in the treatment reducing inflammation and pain, followed with increasingly strenuous exercise therapy, aligned with optimal management of carbohydrate metabolism, proves essential in alleviating MSK complications.