Knee osteoarthritis is a common degenerative disease in orthopedics.The symptoms are mainly knee-joint pain，swelling，and limited movement.In the past，there was no name for arthritis in traditional Chinese medicine.The understanding of arthritis was based on symptoms，which were classified as arthralgia syndrome and paralysis syndrome in the early stage and impotence syndrome in the later stage.In terms of etiology and pathogenesis，it is generally considered that this disease is characterized by a deficiency of the liver and kidney and deficiency of qi and blood in origin and by obstruction of qi and blood，cold coagulation，and phlegm accumulation in superficiality.Therefore，for the treatment，although doctors have different treatment and drug use methods，most of them emphasize the combination of tonification and purgation.Knee osteoarthritis essentially reflects the senescence of bone and joints.By combining the understanding of senescence in traditional Chinese medicine and the understanding of tissue cell senescence in modern medicine，it is instructive for clinical and scientific research to understand the scientific connotation of mixed deficiency and excess in knee osteoarthritis from the mechanism of cell senescence and its diffusion in tissue.