Arthritis is an inflammatory disease that causes pain and loss of movement in the joints. The word arthritis literally means joint inflammation (arth=joint, ritis=inflammation), and refers to more than 100 different diseases.

Arthritis Treatment

Arthritis treatment is based on type of arthritis, degree of joint damage and progression of the disease.

Education: Every physician/therapist should to offer suggestions to change patient's life, work and other environment to minimize the possibility of further problems and decrease stress. Some researchers suggest to sleep 10 hours at night and 30-60 minutes a day while experiencing acute inflammation.

Drug treatment: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), cortisone injections have been proven effective for severe untreatable cases. Recently, injection of synthetic joint fluid became widely used.

Acupuncture: and a new technique Physiopuncture can be applied to reduce the pain.

Physical Therapy for Arthritis

The goal of physical therapy as a part of treatment is to reduce inflammation, provide pain relief, prevent joint deformity and other joint injuries.

Manual therapy is always a cornerstone in treatment of joint problems. Every patient should be given a set of exercises for his/her particular problem. These are performed to maintain muscle strength, joint mobility and flexibility.

Depending on condition physical therapist can additionally use electrical stimulation, ultrasound, magnetic therapy, shortwave therapy and laser for affected joints.

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Arthritis Description

Arthritis affects the movements you rely on for everyday activities. Arthritis is usually chronic. This means that it can last on and off for a lifetime.

Inflammation is a reaction of the body that causes swelling, redness, pain, and loss of motion in an affected area. It is the major physical problem in the most serious forms of arthritis.

Normally, inflammation is the way the body responds to an injury or to the presence of disease agents, such as viruses or bacteria. During this reaction, many cells of the body's defense system (called the immune system) rush to the injured area to wipe out the cause of the problem, clean up damaged cells and repair tissues that have been hurt. Once the "battle" is won, the inflammation normally goes away and the area becomes healthy again.

In many forms of arthritis, the inflammation does not go away as it should. Instead, it becomes part of the problem, damaging healthy tissues of the body. This may result in more inflammation and more damage - a continuing cycle.

The damage that occurs can change the bones and other tissues of the joints, sometimes affecting their shape and making movement hard and painful.

Arthritis Symptoms

Arthritis can affect any joint, but often it is hand, wrist and arm joints.

The general symptoms of arthritis are swelling, warmth and redness as well as some particular pain, stiffness (mostly morning stiffness), fatigue.

There are many different types of arthritis, the most common: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA).

Rheumatoid arthritis affects the cell lining which normally covers the cartilage and lubricates the joints. Affects multiple joints in symmetrical pattern. The joint is usually inflamed, swollen and painful.

Osteoarthritis is degenerative joint disease in which the cartilage, covering the bone surface becomes damaged.

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