Joint stiffness may be either the symptom of pain on moving a joint, the symptom of loss of range of motion or the physical sign of reduced range of motion.

- Pain on movement is commonly caused by osteoarthritis, often in quite minor degrees, and other forms of arthritis. It may also be caused by injury or overuse and rarely by more complex causes of pain such as infection or neoplasm. The range of motion may be normal or limited by pain. "Morning stiffness" pain which eases up after the joint has been used, is characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis.

- Loss of motion (symptom): the patient notices that the joint (or many joints) do not move as far as they used to or need to. Loss of motion is a feature of more advanced stages of arthritis including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

- Loss of range of motion (sign): the examining medical professional notes that the range of motion of the joint is less than normal. Routine examination by an orthopaedic surgeon or rheumatologist will often pay particular attention to this. The range of motion may be measured and compared to the other side and to normal ranges. This sign is associated with the same causes as the symptom. In extreme cases when the joint does not move at all it is said to be ankylosed.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), is a chronic inflammatory disorder that most typically begins in the small joints in your hands and feet. However, the course can begin with other nonspecific symptoms, such as tiredness. After attacking the smaller joints of the body, RA often progresses into larger joints, such as the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. Symptoms include joint pain, swelling, red and puffy hands, and fatigue. RA degrades the lining of the joints and causes swelling that is painful and can lead to joint deformity in the affected joints. Rheumatoid arthritis tends to worsen over time. Though there is no permanent cure, the course of the disease can be modified so that the damage is less, the patient is more comfortable and the patient can continue to engage in and enjoy daily activities. Treatment is most effective when it is begun as early as possible, before the process of deformity is far progressed, but some relief can be offered by treatment at any stage.

"Adhesive capsulitis" (also known as "frozen shoulder") is a painful and disabling disorder of unclear cause in which the shoulder capsule, the connective tissue surrounding the glenohumeral joint of the shoulder, becomes inflamed and stiff, greatly restricting motion and causing chronic pain. Pain is usually constant, worse at night, and with cold weather. Certain movements or bumps can provoke episodes of tremendous pain and cramping. The condition is thought to be caused by injury or trauma to the area and may have an autoimmune component.

Risk factors for frozen shoulder include tonic seizures, diabetes mellitus, stroke, accidents, lung disease, connective tissue diseases, thyroid disease, and heart disease. Treatment may be painful and taxing and consists of physical therapy, occupational therapy, medication, massage therapy, hydrodilatation or surgery. A physician may also perform manipulation under anesthesia, which breaks up the adhesions and scar tissue in the joint to help restore some range of motion. Alternative treatments exist such as the Trigenics OAT Procedure, ART, and the OTZ method. But these can vary in efficacy depending on the type and severity of the frozen shoulder. Pain and inflammation can be controlled with analgesics and NSAIDs.

People who suffer from adhesive capsulitis usually experience severe pain and sleep deprivation for prolonged periods due to pain that gets worse when lying still and restricted movement/positions. The condition can lead to depression, problems in the neck and back, and severe weight loss due to long-term lack of deep sleep. People who suffer from adhesive capsulitis may have extreme difficulty concentrating, working, or performing daily life activities for extended periods of time. The condition tends to be self-limiting and usually resolves over time without surgery. Most people regain about 90% of shoulder motion over time.

Symptoms can vary from aches or pains and local joint stiffness, to a burning that surrounds the whole joint around the inflamed tendon. In some cases, swelling occurs along with heat and redness, and there may be visible knots surrounding the joint. With this condition, the pain is usually worse during and after activity, and the tendon and joint area can become stiff the following day as muscles tighten from the movement of the tendon. Many patients report stressful situations in their life in correlation with the beginnings of pain which may contribute to the symptoms.

If the symptoms of tendinitis last for several months (6 months) or longer, it is probably tendinosis.

Movement of the shoulder is severely restricted, with progressive loss of both active and passive range of motion. The condition is sometimes caused by injury, leading to lack of use due to pain, but also often arises spontaneously with no obvious preceding trigger factor (idiopathic frozen shoulder). Rheumatic disease progression and recent shoulder surgery can also cause a pattern of pain and limitation similar to frozen shoulder. Intermittent periods of use may cause inflammation.

In frozen shoulder, there is a lack of synovial fluid, which normally helps the shoulder joint, a ball and socket joint, move by lubricating the gap between the humerus (upper arm bone) and the socket in the shoulder blade. The shoulder capsule thickens, swells, and tightens due to bands of scar tissue (adhesions) that have formed inside the capsule. As a result, there is less room in the joint for the humerus, making movement of the shoulder stiff and painful. This restricted space between the capsule and ball of the humerus distinguishes adhesive capsulitis from a less complicated, painful, stiff shoulder.

Transient synovitis causes pain in the hip, thigh, groin or knee on the affected side. There may be a limp (or abnormal crawling in infants) with or without pain. In small infants, the presenting complaint can be unexplained crying (for example, when changing a diaper). The condition is nearly always limited to one side. The pain and limp can range from mild to severe.

Some children may have a slightly raised temperature; high fever and general malaise point to other, more serious conditions. On clinical examination, the child typically holds the hip slightly bent, turned outwards and away from the middle line (flexion, external rotation and abduction). Active and passive movements may be limited because of pain, especially abduction and internal rotation. The hip can be tender to palpation. The log roll test involves gently rotating the entire lower limb inwards and outwards with the patient on his back, to check when muscle guarding occurs. The unaffected hip and the knees, ankles, feet and spine are found to be normal.

Knee arthritis is inflammation in the joints or area of the body where two bones come together. Joints are responsible for the movement of body parts. It is a condition that can be experienced all over the body or in a specific area. The types range from those related to wear and tear of cartilage, such as osteoarthritis to those associated with inflammation resulting from an overactive immune system, such as rheumatoid arthritis. The one part of the body that is most affected by arthritis is the knee and it can suffer from both rheumatoid or osteoarthritis.

Subacromial bursitis often presents with a constellation of symptoms called impingement syndrome. Pain along the front and side of the shoulder is the most common symptom and may cause weakness and stiffness. If the pain resolves and weakness persists other causes should be evaluated such as a tear of the rotator cuff or a neurological problem arising from the neck or entrapment of the suprascapular nerve. The onset of pain may be sudden or gradual and may or may not be related to trauma. Night time pain, especially sleeping on the affected shoulder, is often reported. Localized redness or swelling are less common and suggest an infected subacromial bursa. Individuals affected by subacromial bursitis commonly present with concomitant shoulder problems such as arthritis, rotator cuff tendinitis, rotator cuff tears, and cervical radiculopathy (pinched nerve in neck).

Impingement may be brought on by sports activities, such as overhead throwing sports and swimming, or overhead work such as painting, carpentry, or plumbing. Activities that involve repetitive overhead activity, or directly in front, may cause shoulder pain. Direct upward pressure on the shoulder, such as leaning on an elbow, may increase pain.

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis presents gradually with early morning stiffness, fatigue, and weight loss.

The main symptom of shoulder arthritis is pain; this is due to the grinding of the bones against each other because of the lack of cartilage. Pain usually occurs in the front of the shoulder and is worse with motion. People with shoulder arthritis will also experience moderate to severe weakness, stiffness developing over many years, and the inability to sleep on the affected shoulder.

Bursitis commonly affects superficial bursae. These include the subacromial, prepatellar, retrocalcaneal, and pes anserinus bursae of the shoulder, knee, heel and shin, etc. (see below). Symptoms vary from localized warmth and erythema to joint pain and stiffness, to stinging pain that surrounds the joint around the inflamed bursa. In this condition, the pain usually is worse during and after activity, and then the bursa and the surrounding joint becomes stiff the next morning.

The most common initial symptom of wrist osteoarthritis is joint pain. The pain is brought on by activity and increases when there is activity after resting. Other signs and symptoms, as with any joint affected by osteoarthritis, include:

- Morning stiffness, which usually lasts less than 30 minutes. This is also present in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, but in those patients this typically lasts for more than 45 minutes.

- Swelling of the wrist.

- Crepitus (crackling), which is felt when the hand is moved passively.

- Joint locking, where the joint is fixed in an extended position.

- Joint instability.

These symptoms can lead to loss of function and less daily activity.

Tendinitis injuries are common in the upper shoulder and lower section of the elbow (including the rotator cuff attachments), and are less common in the hips and torso. Individual variation in frequency and severity of tendinitis will vary depending on the type, frequency and severity of exercise or use; for example, rock climbers tend to develop tendinitis in their fingers or elbows, swimmers in their shoulders. Achilles tendinitis is a common injury, particularly in sports that involve lunging and jumping, while Patellar tendinitis is a common among basketball and volleyball players owing to the amount of jumping and landing.

A veterinary equivalent to Achilles tendinitis is bowed tendon, tendinitis of the superficial digital tendon of the horse.

Transient synovitis is a reactive arthritis of the hip of unknown cause. People are usually able to walk and may have a low grade fever. They usually look clinically nontoxic or otherwise healthy. It may only be diagnosed once all other potential serious causes are excluded. With symptomatic care it usually resolves over one week.

Shoulder arthritis can be one of three types of arthritis in the glenohumeral joint of the shoulder. The glenohumeral joint is a ball and socket joint, which relies on cartilage to move smoothly and to operate normally.

Repeated, periodic joint effusions of the knee. Usually one knee is affected but sometimes both knees. Other joints may also be involved along with the knee. Effusions are large, restricting range of motion but significant pain is not a feature. There is usually stiffness. Tenderness of the joint may or may not be present. Aspirated synovial fluid is usually sterile but will sometimes show elevated cell count (>100 cells/mL) with 50% being polymorphonuclear leukocytes.

Onset of effusions are sudden with no particular trigger or stimulus. Each episode lasts for a few days to about a week and recurs in cycles of 7 to 11 days with extremes of 3 days to 30 days also reported. Sometimes the joint may begin to swell again as soon as the fluid has subsided. Where both knees are affected concurrently, as one joint ceases to swell the other may become involved.

The cycle of joints swellings have been reported as being very regular, even predictable. This has been a characteristic feature of IH in many case reports. However, over the longer-term especially, these cycles of effusion and recovery may not be as constant as first reported.

In women, many cases seem to begin at puberty. Episodes of knee swelling may coincide the menstrual cycle. In nearly all case reports, pregnancy seems to suppress the condition but after birth, during lactation, it returns.

In the main, patients are mostly free of other symptoms. Fever is rare. There no signs of local inflammation or lymphatic involvement. Laboratory tests are generally normal or within reference limits.

Shoulder problems including pain, are one of the more common reasons for physician visits for musculoskeletal symptoms. The shoulder is the most movable joint in the body. However, it is an unstable joint because of the range of motion allowed. This instability increases the likelihood of joint injury, often leading to a degenerative process in which tissues break down and no longer function well.

Shoulder pain may be localized or may be referred to areas around the shoulder or down the arm. Other regions within the body (such as gallbladder, liver, or heart disease, or disease of the cervical spine of the neck) also may generate pain that the brain may interpret as arising from the shoulder.

Transient synovitis of the hip (also called toxic synovitis; see below for more synonyms) is a self-limiting condition in which there is an inflammation of the inner lining (the synovium) of the capsule of the hip joint. The term irritable hip refers to the syndrome of acute hip pain, joint stiffness, limp or non-weightbearing, indicative of an underlying condition such as transient synovitis or orthopedic infections (like septic arthritis or osteomyelitis). In everyday clinical practice however, irritable hip is commonly used as a synonym for transient synovitis. It should not be confused with sciatica, a condition describing hip and lower back pain much more common to adults than transient synovitis but with similar signs and symptoms.

Transient synovitis usually affects children between three and ten years old (but it has been reported in a 3-month-old infant and in some adults). It is the most common cause of sudden hip pain and limp in young children. Boys are affected two to four times as often as girls. The exact cause is unknown. A recent viral infection (most commonly an upper respiratory tract infection) or a trauma have been postulated as precipitating events, although these are reported only in 30% and 5% of cases, respectively.

Transient synovitis is a diagnosis of exclusion. The diagnosis can be made in the typical setting of pain or limp in a young child who is not generally unwell and has no recent trauma. There is a limited range of motion of the hip joint. Blood tests may show mild inflammation. An ultrasound scan of the hip joint can show a fluid collection (effusion). Treatment is with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and limited weight-bearing. The condition usually clears by itself within seven to ten days, but a small group of patients will continue to have symptoms for several weeks. The recurrence rate is 4–17%, most of which is in the first six months.

Symptoms can vary from an ache or pain and swelling to the local area of the ankles, or a burning that surrounds the whole joint. With this condition, the pain is usually worse during and after activity, and the tendon and joint area can become stiffer the following day as swelling impinges on the movement of the tendon. Many patients report stressful situations in their lives in correlation with the beginnings of pain which may contribute to the symptoms.

Stenosing tenosynovitis often presents with a painful and swollen thumb with limited range of motion, or a ring finger or middle finger with similarly limited motion. There is often a feeling of catching when the thumb is flexed. In the ring and middle fingers, often a nodule can be felt when you press the area of the hand where the palm meets the finger.

Subacromial bursitis is a condition caused by inflammation of the bursa that separates the superior surface of the supraspinatus tendon (one of the four tendons of the rotator cuff) from the overlying coraco-acromial ligament, acromion, coracoid (the acromial arch) and from the deep surface of the deltoid muscle. The subacromial bursa helps the motion of the supraspinatus tendon of the rotator cuff in activities such as overhead work.

Musculoskeletal complaints are one of the most common reasons for primary care office visits, and rotator cuff disorders are the most common source of shoulder pain.

Primary inflammation of the subacromial bursa is relatively rare and may arise from autoimmune inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis; crystal deposition disorders such as gout or pseudogout; calcific loose bodies, and infection. More commonly, subacromial bursitis arises as a result of complex factors, thought to cause shoulder impingement symptoms. These factors are broadly classified as intrinsic (intratendinous) or extrinsic (extratendinous). They are further divided into primary or secondary causes of impingement. Secondary causes are thought to be part of another process such as shoulder instability or nerve injury.

In 1983 Neer described three stages of impingement syndrome. He noted that "the symptoms and physical signs in all three stages of impingement are almost identical, including the 'impingement sign'..., arc of pain, crepitus, and varying weakness." The Neer classification did not distinguish between partial-thickness and full-thickness rotator cuff tears in stage III. This has led to some controversy about the ability of physical examination tests to accurately diagnose between bursitis, impingement, impingement with or without rotator cuff tear and impingement with partial versus complete tears.

In 2005, Park et al. published their findings which concluded that a combination of clinical tests were more useful than a single physical examination test. For the diagnosis of impingement disease, the best combination of tests were "any degree (of) a positive Hawkins-Kennedy test, a positive painful arc sign, and weakness in external rotation with the arm at the side," to diagnose a full thickness rotator cuff tear, the best combination of tests, when all three are positive, were the painful arc, the drop-arm sign, and weakness in external rotation.

The main symptom is pain, causing loss of ability and often stiffness. "Pain" is generally described as a sharp ache or a burning sensation in the associated muscles and tendons, and is typically made worse by prolonged activity and relieved by rest. Stiffness is most common in the morning, and typically lasts less than thirty minutes after beginning daily activities, but may return after periods of inactivity. Osteoarthritis can cause a crackling noise (called "crepitus") when the affected joint is moved or touched and people may experience muscle spasms and contractions in the tendons. Occasionally, the joints may also be filled with fluid. Some people report increased pain associated with cold temperature, high humidity, or a drop in barometric pressure, but studies have had mixed results.

Osteoarthritis commonly affects the hands, feet, spine, and the large weight-bearing joints, such as the hips and knees, although in theory, any joint in the body can be affected. As osteoarthritis progresses, movement patterns (such as gait), are typically affected. Osteoarthritis is the most common cause of a joint effusion of the knee.

In smaller joints, such as at the fingers, hard bony enlargements, called Heberden's nodes (on the distal interphalangeal joints) or Bouchard's nodes (on the proximal interphalangeal joints), may form, and though they are not necessarily painful, they do limit the movement of the fingers significantly. Osteoarthritis of the toes may be a factor causing formation of bunions, rendering them red or swollen.

Bursitis is the inflammation of one or more bursae (small sacs) of synovial fluid in the body. They are lined with a synovial membrane that secretes a lubricating synovial fluid. There are more than 150 bursae in the human body. The bursae rest at the points where internal functionaries, such as muscles and tendons, slide across bone. Healthy bursae create a smooth, almost frictionless functional gliding surface making normal movement painless. When bursitis occurs, however, movement relying on the inflamed bursa becomes difficult and painful. Moreover, movement of tendons and muscles over the inflamed bursa aggravates its inflammation, perpetuating the problem. Muscle can also be stiffened.

Symptoms may occur immediately after trauma (acute) or develop over time (chronic).

Acute injury is less frequent than chronic disease, but may follow bouts of forcefully raising the arm against resistance, as occurs in weightlifting, for example. In addition, falling forcefully on the shoulder can cause acute symptoms. These traumatic tears predominantly affect the supraspinatus tendon or the rotator interval and symptoms include severe pain that radiates through the arm, and limited range of motion, specifically during abduction of the shoulder.

Chronic tears occur among individuals who constantly participate in overhead activities, such as pitching or swimming, but can also develop from shoulder tendinitis or rotator cuff disease. Symptoms arising from chronic tears include sporadic worsening of pain, debilitation, and atrophy of the muscles, noticeable pain during rest, crackling sensations (crepitus) when moving the shoulder, and inability to move or lift the arm sufficiently, especially during abduction and flexion motions.

Pain in the anterolateral aspect of the shoulder is not specific to the shoulder, and may arise from, and be referred from, the neck, heart or gut.

Patient history will often include pain or ache over the front and outer aspect of the shoulder, pain aggravated by leaning on the elbow and pushing upwards on the shoulder (such as leaning on the armrest of a reclining chair), intolerance of overhead activity, pain at night when lying directly on the affected shoulder, pain when reaching forward (e.g. unable to lift a gallon of milk from the refrigerator). Weakness may be reported, but is often masked by pain and is usually found only through examination. With longer-standing pain, the shoulder is favored and gradually loss of motion and weakness may develop, which, due to pain and guarding, are often unrecognized by the patient and only brought to attention during examination.

Primary shoulder problems may cause pain over the deltoid muscle intensified by abduction against resistance - the impingement sign. This signifies pain arising from the rotator cuff, but cannot distinguish between inflammation, strain, or tear. Patients may report that they are unable to reach upwards to brush their hair or to lift a food can from an overhead shelf.

Trapeziometacarpal osteoarthritis, also known as carpometacarpal (CMC) osteoarthritis (OA) of the thumb or osteoarthritis at the base of the thumb, is a reparitive joint disease affecting the first carpometacarpal joint (CMC1). This joint is formed by the trapezium bone of the wrist and the first metacarpal bone of the thumb. Because of its relative instability, this joint is a frequent site for osteoarthritis. Carpometacarpal osteoarthritis (CMC OA) of the thumb occurs when the cushioning cartilage of the joint surfaces wears away, resulting in damage of the joint.

The main complaint of patients is pain. Pain at the base of the thumb occurs when moving the thumb and might eventually persist at rest. Other symptoms include stiffness, swelling and loss of strength of the thumb. Treatment options include conservative and surgical therapies.