Podiatry Rhuematoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints. While inflammation of the tissue around the joints and inflammatory arthritis are characteristic features of rheumatoid arthritis, the disease can also cause inflammation and injury in other organs in the

Rheumatoid Arthritis(RA) is the most common type of autoimmune arthritis. RA is a progressive and debilitating musculoskeletal disorder that affects the joints symmetrically, causing a range of systemic effects. What it causes is still not well known; nevertheless, findings of new research points towards a believe that it is triggered by a defective immune system, which causes the release of inflammatory chemicals. These chemicals cause damage to cartilage and bone, usually affecting the wrists, the joints of the hand, including the knuckles, the middle joints of the fingers and feet. While this condition can affect any joints, besides, important body organs such as the eyes and the lungs can also be affected by the inflammation that occurs as a result of this chronic condition. Only in America 1.3 million of people are affected by this ailment, and 75 % of them are mainly women. Its onset usually occurs between fourth and sixth decades; however, RA can occur at any age("Diseases And

Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the incurable diseases and turns chronic with progressive inflammatory of the synovial lining of peripheral joins. It is characterized by symmetric, chronic, and deforming polyatrhitis that causes long term joint disability when not controlled early. Considering there is no cure for this disease, management focuses on pain and inflammation reduction in order to prevent destruction of joints while at the same time preserving and improving on the functionality of the patient (Varatharajan et al, 2009).

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic syndrome that is characterized by inflammation of the peripheral joints, but it may also involve the lungs, heart, blood vessels, and eyes. The prevalence of this autoimmune disease is between 0.3% to 1.5% of the population in the United States (Feinberg, pp 815). It affects women two to three times more often than men, and the onset of RA is usually between 25 and 50 years of age, but it can occur at any age (Reed, pp 584). RA can be diagnosed by establishing the presence of persistent joint pain, swelling in a symmetric distribution, and prolonged morning stiffness. RA usually affects multiple joints, such as the hands, wrists, knees, elbows, feet, shoulders, hips, and small

20 patients with active RA in 1992 were first to be treated with infliximab. There was a dramatic drop in C-reactive protein (CRP and ethrocyte sedimentation rate. However patients relaped with 3-8 week demonstrating that they require another dose of

Around 70% of arthritis sufferers in the UK have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Women are also more likely to develop RA than men, and commonly affects adults between ages 50 and 60. This condition is characterised by an insidious onset of pain, swelling of joints and morning stiffness. Arthritis is caused by inflammation of the synovial tissue of the joints, supposedly triggered by the presence of autobodies such as rheumatoid factors. The first line treatment for RA is a combination of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD). These slow down the progression of RA and treatment typically includes methotrexate in combination with another DMARD (e.g. sulphasalazine). Short term glucocorticoids are also used with DMARDS to manage flares of inflammation. Anti-TNF drugs

Thank you Prianca for taking the time to share about the cytokines and their interaction in the inflammatory process of the Rheumatoid Arthritis. Indeed, the epidemiology incidence of Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is increasing every minute. Like you well explain above in your post, we have more than 1.3 million of people in the US affected with RA (Ruderman & Tambar, 2013) and 1 percent of the worldwide population is affected with RA (Lubberts & Berg, 2003). It seems like this epidemic is going to continue. 75 percent of that 1.3 million are women, and statistically, 1 of 3 women may get rheumatoid arthritis in their life. Rheumatoid arthritis can affect anybody at any age, but in most of the cases, the disease begins in the 40’s and 60’s (Ruderman & Tambar, 2013).

Unfortunately, we have a little evidence for the treatment of ILD associated with RA,due to the lack

RA is a mediated inflammatory process that triggers an autoimmune response. The result is in the production of antibodies and inflammatory cytokines that over time destroys bone, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and blood vessels (Dewing, Setter, & Slusher, 2012). Although joints are the primary areas of destruction, the inflammatory process can also affect various organs, such as heart tissue including the heart values, visceral layers of the lung and brain, spleen, sclera and larynx (Dunphy, Windland-Brown, Porter, & Thomas 2011). If RA is not treated promptly or if the patient does not respond to treatment, irrevocable bone deformity, bone erosion and immobility is often the sequelae.

Rheumatoid Arthritis, what is it? The word Rheumatoid comes from the greek word referring to rheumatism, which means any painful disorder from the joints. Arthritis means inflammation of the joint. (William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979). Putting these two words together Rheumatoid Arthritis creates a disorder. The pathophysiology of RA is that it is a chronic, systemic, inflammatory autoimmune disease which means that this disorder is attacking your own body (Silvestri, 2013, p. 851 ). This usually happens at the joints where two bones meet that create movement of body parts. This disorder is systemic and usually if it happens one side,

Low temperature, fatigue and weakness, elevated sedimentation rate and a positive rheumatoid factor. History of weight loss, anorexia and fever; swan neck deformity and boutonniere deformity and a decreased range of motion (Silvestri, 2013). During an assessment for this type of disorder you can tell if there are any joint deformities such as subluxation also know as dislocation can occur as well. Warmth or swollen joints, limited movement of the joint or immovable joints also known as ankylosis. Skin may be reddened but does not apply to everyone who has RA (Rosdahl, 2012). Some studies have shown that RA has been linked to having cardiovascular disease. Is been shown that most people that are diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis are 3 times more likely to have a heart attack than others due to inflammation in the body affecting all other organs (Crowson, 2013).

The process involves an inflammatory response of the capsule around the joints (synovium) secondary to swelling (hyperplasia) of synovial cells, excess synovial fluid, and the development of fibrous tissue (pannus) in the synovium (Gerd et al.,2014). RA is more prevalent among women than men, and usually develops in the fourth and fifth decades of life, with 80% of the total cases occurring between ages 35 and 50 (Kavanaugh and Lipsky 1996).RA reduces lifespan on average from three to twelve years. RA is associated with decreased physical function, disability, under employment, and overall diminished quality of life. (Maclean C H et al., 2000). When it occurs in children it is called Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. The incidence and prevalence of RA differs significantly over time and between continents. The prevalence in developing countries ranges between 0.1 and 0.5% (Akar et al., 2004). Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory illness with prevalence of approximately 0.75% in India (Ausaf et al.,

Since this disease has chronic, systemic, autoimmune, and inflammatory characteristics, the initial diagnosis is rarely rheumatoid arthritis. The common use of the term arthritis “can oversimplify the nature of the varied disease processes and the difficulty in differentiating one from another” (Grossman, 2014, p. 1499). The diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis is “made clinically based primarily on physical examination findings” (Gibofsky, 2012, p. 295), which can be a cause of misdiagnosis, since many diseases have overlapping presentations.

Arthritis is a biological term that refers to joint pain or joint disease that affects more than 50 million adults and 300,000 children (Arthritis Foundation). Because of the large variety in the affected population, there are complications in arthritis research due to the differences in its severities and symptoms. One of the most common types of arthritis is rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation within the lining of joints resulting in pain and swelling (Arthritis Foundation). It affects more than 1.3 million Americans and approximately 7 million people worldwide (Rheumatoid Arthritis 2016) causing debilitating symptoms to millions of people. Because of its prevalence, research needs to be fully investigated

The RA disease development is linked with many pro-inflammatory factors 1-2. Cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-α played important roles in inflammatory development on diseases site2, therefore, clinically, suppressing the activity of these factors on synovial cells is the main strategy for most RA treatment methods. The suppression can be achieved externally by drug management. The recent development of gene therapy studies on RA, in addition, has opened up a new therapeutic approach via genetic modification. The principle of RA gene therapy is to use a vector to insert a receptor antagonise gene or antisense gene of pro-inflammatory factors into synovial fibroblast cells,