Definition

1. Verb (Intransitive):
   • To become stiff or fixed in a joint due to disease or surgery: This describes the process where a joint abnormally ossifies or fuses, resulting in a loss of mobility.
2. Verb (Transitive):
   • To cause a joint to become stiff or fixed: This describes the action of surgically fusing a joint or the effect of a disease process that results in joint stiffness.

Usage Examples

• Verb (Intransitive):
  • Without treatment, the bones in the joint may ankylose completely.
  • The patient's spine began to ankylose due to the chronic inflammatory condition.
• Verb (Transitive):
  • The surgeon had to ankylose the joint to relieve the patient's chronic pain.
  • Severe arthritis can ankylose the vertebrae over time.

Advanced Usage

• Medical/Pathological Context: The term is almost exclusively used in medical contexts to describe pathological fusion (e.g., from ankylosing spondylitis) or a surgical procedure (arthrodesis).
  • The radiographic images show the sacroiliac joints starting to ankylose.

Variants and Related Words

• Ankylosis (n.): The condition or process of joint stiffening or fusion.
  • The patient was diagnosed with bony ankylosis of the knee.
• Ankylosed (adj.): Describing a joint that has become stiff or fused.
  • The ankylosed elbow had very limited range of motion.

Synonyms

• Fuse (in a medical context): To join or become joined into a single structure.
• Stiffen (pathologically): To become rigid or inflexible.

Antonyms

• Mobilize: To make capable of movement.
• Articulate: To form a joint; to move freely at a joint.

Verb

1. undergo ankylosis
   • joints ankylose
2. produce ankylosis by surgery