Experts at ACR Convergence 2020 addressed how diet & the body’s microbiome affect chronic diseases.


Experts at ACR Convergence 2020 addressed how diet & the body’s microbiome affect chronic diseases.

Hiral Master, PT, PhD, MPH, Teresa J. Brady, PhD, Aileen Ledingham, PT, MS, PhD, & Carole Dodge, OT, CHT, on behalf of the ARP eLearning Subcommittee |
The ARP’s revised Fundamentals of Rheumatology Course (FRC) will soon be released on the ACR website. The course was revamped by interdisciplinary rheumatology professionals emphasizing an inter-professional approach to patient care. It is intended to reach a broad audience, including nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists, physical therapists, psychologists and social workers to name a few. However,…

Tamar Rubinstein, MD, Natoshia Cunningham, PhD, & Andrea Knight, MD, MSCE |
It is nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. and the third wave is upon us, overwhelming hospital systems in many states across the country. But the alarms are being sounded for another looming pandemic as well. As early as spring 2020, significant increases were documented in the prevalence of depression and anxiety,…

Leonard H. Calabrese, DO |
Rheumatology has arguably benefited like no other field from the proliferation of an increasingly effective pipeline of therapeutics. These medications have dramatically raised the bar for clinical outcomes for our patients in a way that we could not have envisioned a short generation ago. With such therapeutic progress now reaching a widening circle of rheumatic…

ACR CONVERGENCE 2020—Attention to bone health in people at risk of developing, or who already have, osteoporosis is essential to reduce their increased risk for fragility fractures. Major risk factors for osteoporosis include being female, white, of small frame and having a family history of osteoporosis, as well as having secondary causes of osteoporosis, such…

The ACR Review Course featured eight talks providing a practical review of issues encountered by rheumatologists.

Philip Seo, MD, MHS |
“It’s like winning Powerball.” For months, there has been a steady trickle of questions from my patients, asking for my opinion about the new vaccines being developed to prevent COVID-19. More to the point, they want to know if they should be vaccinated. After some fits and starts, I finally struck upon a pat answer…

David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD |
ACR CONVERGENCE 2020—Held Nov. 5–9, the ACR’s first fully virtual annual meeting is a wrap, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to catch the highlights. Dozens of research abstracts on various aspects of lupus were presented during the fully virtual event, and David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and immunology at Duke…

COVID-19 isn’t the only viral infection on the rise across the globe, so is chikungunya, which can cause arthritis-like symptoms and may lead to long-term joint pain.

A recent article in Arthritis Care & Research supports the idea that the patient global assessment reflects primarily the patient’s experience of their functioning in daily life.1 Background The patient global assessment is a key measure used by clinicians and researchers to help evaluate disease status in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Lead author Ethan T. Craig,…