Degenerative Changes
Age-related changes to joints or the spine — present in most adults, and a poor predictor of pain.
What it means
Changes to joints, discs and bones that accumulate with age. Thinner discs, small bony spurs, narrowed joint spaces.
They are present in the majority of healthy adults over 40, most of whom have no symptoms whatever. Studies scanning people with no back pain at all find degenerative changes in most of them.
The correlation between what a scan shows and how much pain someone is in is weak — which is why reading this phrase and concluding your spine is crumbling is both common and wrong.
In practice
On almost every spine, knee, hip and shoulder scan report in anyone middle-aged or older.
Often alongside frightening-sounding detail — "disc desiccation", "osteophytes", "facet joint arthropathy" — all of which describe the same ordinary process.
Why it matters
Do not let it stop you moving. This is the practical harm of the phrase: people read it, become fearful of activity, lose strength, and get worse.
Ask whether the findings actually explain your symptoms, which frequently they do not.
Ask what the treatment is regardless of the scan. For most degenerative joint and back pain the answer is exercise and strengthening, and the imaging changes very little about that.
Clinically reviewed by Dr Mohammad Zubair Khan, GMC 7563469
Last reviewed
August 30, 2026