Rheumatology

Operative treatment of children with fractures has increased substantially during the past decade.

In spite of decreasing income and increasing pressures for greater efficiency, primary care physicians are spending more time with patients during typical office visits rather than less time.

Arthroscopy performed for hip injuries in athletes can result in substantial improvement with durable results. However, the prognosis is poor for those in whom arthritis prompts the procedure.

The classic disease-specific instruments for evaluating ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are geared toward the needs of researchers and clinicians. Therefore, they often do not cover aspects of the disease that are important to patients and those factors are neglected.

The dollars being spent on aggregate overall direct medical expenditures for adults with arthritis are almost double the group's share of the population.

The duration of morning stiffness in patients who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA) correlates better with other patient-reported outcomes than with joint counts and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).

This 10-part series will expose why consumers and doctors are getting the short shrift in all healthcare reform proposals.

The gait parameters of women affected by fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) are severely impaired compared with those of healthy women, according to researchers in the department of physical education and sports at the University of Granada in Spain. Different factors (eg, lack of physical activity, bradykinesia, overweight, fatigue, and pain) together with a lower isometric force in the legs may be responsible for the alterations in gait and poorer quality of life in women with FMS.

Erica Stotler shares her experience with JRA and how her rheumatologists are supportive of the local support system she started with her friend with the assistance of Arthritis through Arthritis Introspective.

MDNG editorial board member Larry Chu, MD will cover the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show live via this page on HCPLive.com. Sign up below for a reminder to come back after 11:00AM (EST) on January 7.

In persons with tibiotalar osteoarthritis (OA), subtalar joint motion during the stance phase of gait in the sagittal, coronal, and transverse rotational planes tends to occur in a direction opposite to that in persons who have normal ankles, according to researchers in the department of orthopedic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This phenomenon represents a breakdown in the normal motion coupling seen in healthy ankle joints.

It looks like 2010 is starting off with some changes in healthcare on the horizon – from a number of angles.

The year 2009 will be remembered as a year of many firsts for lupus, including the launch of a public awareness campaign, a report on the barriers to lupus drug development, and the first successful phase III clinical trial of a potential new treatment for lupus.

The ABPAT is a standardized assessment "designed to characterize various clinically relevant elements of breakthrough pain" and support "improved research on the tolerability, safety and efficacy of novel breakthrough analgesic interventions."

I became a blogger 4 months ago, a gig that I find fascinating and refreshing. A place for me to vent, pontificate, and generally hold forth with a jaundiced view of my profession and the industrial Goliaths that support it.

We spoke with Dr. Kent Willyard about his experience using Epocrates since it was introduced to healthcare professionals.

Sen. Joe Lieberman is officially working to block health care reform in the Congress; he especially desires de-postponing any kind of "health care reform" until the economy has recovered.

Last week, Biogen Idec announced that its oral compound BG-12 (dimethyl fumarate) achieved key milestones in clinical trials for multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Arthritis of the cricoarytenoid joints is not as rare as is commonly believed. Many sources still consider cricoarytenoid arthritis to be an atypical symptom of rheumatoid arthritis in spite of evidence to the contrary.

ABSTRACT: MRI allows for earlier detection of the joint synovitis, erosions, and bone marrow edema present in inflammatory arthritis, facilitating earlier diagnosis and treatment.

The development of clinical medical-practice guidelines is a difficult and arduous process. Experts in various disciplines volunteer many hours of their time for medical research reviews and analyses and meetings with fellow guidelines-panel members, and painstakingly writing and reviewing the final report. However, there are many concerns about the quality of medical research serving as a basis for those guidelines.

The vasculitides are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by inflammation and necrosis of blood vessel walls resulting in impaired blood flow and organ damage. This article addresses some of the most frequently asked questions about these conditions.

I overhead two women chatting about symptoms the other day while they were surfing WebMD on their respective iPhones for diagnoses - their discussion was as public and non-chalant as if they were shopping. I mused over this for a minute, unsure if I should be disturbed or not, and then found myself wondering which URLs really are the "go-to" sites for health information. An answer was only a click away via Google search at eBizMBA.com.

Way back in January, Phil Baumann, RN, provided an empathic answer to the question/concern that was on everyone's mind then: "Yeah Twitter seems great and all, but can you use it for anything useful in healthcare?" We followed up with him to see how 2009 went.

Better understanding of meniscus anatomy and function has triggered a search for new and improved treatment options. Nonoperative treatment, including activity modification, rehabilitation, and use of NSAIDs, is directed at minimizing symptoms of pain and swelling.

Tumor necrosis factor a (TNF-a) antagonists and biologic agents do not increase the risk of infection in persons who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA) significantly more than methotrexate (MTX)

The catchphrase for rheumatoid arthritis treatment has become "early and aggressive." It is the best remedy that medicine has today for the management of RA.

We all know it well, and we have known about it since we were new grads: patients with anterior knee pain, worse with sitting and climbing stairs. It even has a nickname, “movie-goer’s knee.” The condition is patellofemoral syndrome.

Fracture-managing physicians are less likely to evaluate and treat patients who have wrist fractures for osteoporosis than those who have hip or spine fractures. Although after a fragility fracture appropriate treatment can curtail the risk of a second fracture by about 50%, treatment often is inadequate, especially for persons who have nonvertebral fractures.

The prevalence and extent of vascular calcification over the thoracic aorta and coronary and carotid arteries are greater in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) than in healthy persons. Because the process of atherosclerosis related to SLE disease activity is diffuse and widespread rather than limited to the coronary arteries, coronary calcification used alone as a marker for atherosclerosis may not disclose the association.