Patients with severe RA can struggle with walking, getting dressed, carrying items and more, all of which can negatively affect their quality of life. But according to Bharat Kumar, MD, service dogs can help RA patients by providing both physical and emotional support, aiding patient mobility and quality of life…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at increased risk of serious infections, myocardial infarction (MI) and coronary heart disease (CHD), an analysis of Medicare claims data suggests. “Higher disease activity as measured by a panel of biomarkers was associated with higher rates of hospitalized infections, MI and CHD events. These findings add…
Receiving an RA diagnosis may be emotional and difficult for patients. By engaging the patient in learning about the disease and its treatment options, as well as cultivating a communicative relationship, rheumatologists can truly help a patient take control of their health…
Efforts by the ACR to develop a rheumatology-specific alternative payment model (APM) are well under way. The first draft proposal was approved by the ACR Board of Directors in November and presented to the rheumatology community during the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego. The ACR is pursuing the development of a rheumatology-specific APM…
Recent research examined the effectiveness of a pedometer-based intervention for managing fatigue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). During the 21-week trial, RA patients using pedometers successfully increased their physical activity, with a greater than 30% decrease in the proportion of participants classified as sedentary. Patients also decreased their reported fatigue, and some reported improvements in function, pain, depressive symptoms and disease activity levels…
Sparks et al set out to investigate whether weight change during the early RA period is associated with subsequent mortality and to evaluate whether there is an RA-specific effect. They investigated weight change during the early RA period, because this is the window of time during which weight change is most likely to be related to RA-specific processes. They found that severe weight loss during the early RA period was associated with a subsequent increased mortality risk both for women with and without RA…
Two decades have passed since the first biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (bDMARD) was approved. Studies on the long-term use of biologics in different disease states, such as for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and malignancy, as well as for knee/hip replacement, reveal some encouraging news. In clinical trials, bDMARDs have been shown to increase the risk of…
Is rheumatoid arthritis (RA) preventable? Results of a newly published study suggest that personalized medicine approaches may result in health behavior that may reduce RA risk. “We have gotten to the point where we’ve identified some modifiable behaviors that affect rheumatoid arthritis risk,” says Jeffrey A. Sparks, MD, MMSc, assistant professor of medicine in the…
The introduction of biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) has greatly expanded the treatment options for managing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In many patients, biologic DMARDs improve clinical symptoms, improve function and slow disease progression. Biologic DMARDs are recommended as add-on treatment to conventional synthetic DMARDs, such as methotrexate (MTX) in patients who experienced an incomplete response…
New research has examined the effect of obesity on inflammatory markers, specifically C-reactive protein (CRP) level and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Researchers found higher BMIs were associated with higher CRP levels in women both with and without RA, suggesting the phenomenon is related to adiposity and not an indication of disease activity. For men with RA, low BMI was associated with higher CRP levels, which proved to be RA-specific but not a direct causal effect of adiposity…