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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2015 Apr 9;23(8):1233–1241. doi: 10.1016/j.joca.2015.03.036

Figure 1. Relationships of disease and illness components.

Figure 1

We posit that the disease may be manifest by a prolonged period of isolated musculoskeletal tissue abnormalities at a molecular and clinically silent level (molecular). Further, the molecular abnormalities could precede the anatomic and physiologic level organ system disease and illness manifestations by years or even decades. In addition, abnormalities of two domains or all in combination could be imagined (depicted by arrows and the ring connecting the components).