Rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis
Arthritis has been known to mankind since ancient times and the first knowledge about this problem dates back to 4500 BC. Remarkablym, the first traces of this illness was not only found in the remnants of ancient people but also in written resources which described symptoms of arthritis in 123 AD. However, it was clearly defined and got its name only in 1859. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the gravest forms of arthritis. It is a chronic, inflammatory disease which results in the immune system attacks of the joints. As a result, individual suffering from this disease loses mobility because of the inflammatory that provokes pain and joint destruction. Moreover, what increases sufferings of patients is the fact that the disease may be chronic and may eventually lead to loss of function and complete disability. What is more, the disease may produce negative impact on extra-articlar tissues of the body.
Features
Speaking about potential ‘victims’ of this diseas, it should be pointed out that people at the age of 20-40 are the groups of a higher risk though the other age categories are not totally prevented against this health problem. Also, the family history may increase the risk of this disease if there are clinical cases in the family tree. Remarkably, women are three times more exposed to this disease than men as well as smokers are also at four times greater risk than non-smokers.
As it has been already mentioned above, RA is a chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune disorder in the result of which joints are affected in polyarticular manner. A particular feature of this type of arthritis is inflammation and soft-tissue swelling of many joints at one and the same time. The joints are dramatically affected and its manner gradually transforms from asymmetrical to symmetrical. The affected joints provoke serious pain if used and usually in the morning they are characterized by stiffness within an hour.
As the disease progress, the affected...

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