Rheumatoid Arthritis Case Study

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INTRODUCTION

For the human body to move swiftly with deliberate and smooth actions, it makes use of synovial fluid within joints. However, rheumatoid arthritis hinders the movement of the body and cause several other debilitating factors such as pain and (near) permanent disability. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is primarily a persistent autoimmune disease which affects synovial joints of the human body. According to Emery (2006), he finds that this is a “long term . . . chronic disease that spreads from joint to joint” (p. 152). Furthermore, it is a disease which primarily assaults the body's immune system by inflaming the synovial joints. The joint tissue is damaged by inflammation of the joint lining causing pain to the patient. Aletaha et …show more content…

2570). His explanation can be used to show that in extreme causes, RA may lead to deformation of the synovial joint. As Aletaha points out, such a severe disability endangers the life of the patient. Aletaha et al. notes that researchers and medical professionals in the last decade have made some improvements with disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and they sufficiently have helped with RA management (p. 2571). Moreover, as “early therapeutic intervention” such as DMARDs has been recognized that helps on the “[improvement] of the clinical outcome [by] reducing accrual of joint damage and disability” (pg. 2571). These recent discoveries have helped cases in the first stages of rheumatoid arthritis. However, for more advanced cases in which evolution of joint destruction is presented, is not an practical yet, because there are no validated criteria to classify a patient with early and effective intervention for this disease (Aletaha et al., p. 2571). Many researchers such as Emery and …show more content…

722). Maradit-Kremers et al. (2005) revealed that their study was “to determine whether markers of systemic inflammation and indicators of RA disease severity confer any additional risk for cardiovascular death” (pg, 723). In other words, their study presents that RA results as a factor of certain health diseases such as cardiovascular death.

Symptoms.
Symptoms of this disease start very simple. Joint pain and stiffness, Inflammation,
Knobby Swelling at the joint site, Grinding or cracking noises at joint site during movement. And a decrease at joint function. Pathology.
Inflammation of tendon sheaths also contributes to RA pathology. According to the John Hopkins RA cytokines are released in the synovial and have autocrine(activates the same cell), paracrine (activates nearby cells), and endocrine (acting at distant sites) effects for systemic manifestations of disease. The behavior of this disease includes a painful route. According to the J Pain Symptom Manage (2009) the company did some study in which they divided people into two groups. Then they filmed the person and record their expressions. They discovered that there are six ways of

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