Scientists Warn Some Musculoskeletal Disorders to More Than Double by 2050

The less commonly discussed forms of musculoskeletal disorder are on the rise, and are set to affect twice as many people in the next 30 years, new research predicts.

This category of "other" musculoskeletal disorder—a group of conditions not described in other disease-specific categories—is forecast to impact as many as 1.06 billion people by the year 2050, nearly twice as many as the 494 million affected in recent data, according to a paper in the journal Lancet Rheumatology.

"We have forecast the 494 million cases in 2020 is projected to grow substantially to reach 1,060 million people living with other musculoskeletal disabilities by 2050," study co-author Manasi Murthy Mittinty, a physician-scientist and public health senior lecturer at Flinders University College of Medicine and a Harvard Medical School advanced global clinical scholar research fellow, said in a statement.

"The research team has identified that musculoskeletal disorders of the types studied in this research, which excludes osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, low back pain and neck pain, are a large and growing source of disability in the world that requires public policy consideration."

The researchers made these predictions after looking into population, health and insurance claims data across 204 countries and territories. They investigated the prevalence of musculoskeletal issues, and years of life lived with the disability,

Musculoskeletal disorders affect the joints, muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons and spine, and arise because of several factors, including injury, repetitive strain, poor posture, aging and genetic disorders. According to the World Health Organization, 1.71 billion people live with all types of musculoskeletal conditions worldwide.

The conditions investigated in this paper include systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriatic arthritis, spondyloarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, among many more.

"Other musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders, include a broad range of conditions such as autoimmune conditions (e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and ankylosing spondylitis) infections of joints and bones, chronic musculoskeletal pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia and joint pains that are not rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis," Tiffany Gill, a Senior Research Fellow in the Adelaide Medical School at the University of Adelaide, told Newsweek. "Together these affect a substantial proportion of the population and can cause disability from symptoms such as pain, weakness and lack of mobility."

The researchers revealed that these "other" musculoskeletal disorders that are on the rise are often overlooked in policy for musculoskeletal health, despite ranking as the sixth-largest cause of years lived with disabilities (YLDs) in 2020, as well as the 19th-largest cause of Disability Adjusted Life years (DALYs), which represent each lost year of healthy life.

"This is mostly due to increases in the world's population size; and, to a lesser extent, due to aging of populations (as many of these problems are more common at middle and older ages) and some expected increase in disease rates, particularly in LMICs (low and middle-income countries)," Gill explained.

They also found that women report higher rates of musculoskeletal disorders than men globally and that these rates peak at 60-69 years old.

"We highlight there is a substantial burden of what are categorised as 'other' musculoskeletal disorders that would otherwise go unrecognised," Mittinty said in the statement. "We based our forecast on population projections and ageing demographics, indicating that not only are the number of people worldwide living with other musculoskeletal conditions such as systemic lupus erythematosus and spondylopathies increasing but so will be their healthcare needs in 2050 and beyond."

"A factor which may add to the projection of course is the emergence of post-COVID-19 implications where a growing cohort of related conditions characterised by musculoskeletal symptoms and loss of mobility are recognised, adding further pressure on health systems and communities," Mittinty said.

This high YLD rate for the "other" musculoskeletal disorders implies that there is a high demand for therapy services, which is backed up by insurance claims data that reveals a large number of visits to health services.

"We need to unpack this large residual of other MSK into its constituent components. This is a non-trivial resource-dependent exercise that is on the priority list for expansion of causes in GBD [Global Burden of Disease]," Gill said. Only with more detailed information on what makes up these other MSK conditions, can we evaluate, cause by cause, what the current state of knowledge is how to prevent or ameliorate these conditions."

"With this information, we can then work towards developing informed health care policies to address the increase in burden of other MSK conditions. Our paper does make these recommendations," Gill said.

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Update12/13/23, 12:55 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Gill.