What is rheumatoid arthritis?

The word arthritis literally means inflammation or swelling of the joints.  This inflammation is generally accompanied by stiffness and also pain.  Arthritis isn’t a single condition.  There are many types of arthritis but one of the most common forms that I see, and I’m sure you’ll have heard of, is rheumatoid arthritis.

Now, we don’t yet know exactly what it is that causes rheumatoid arthritis, although we do know that it’s a disease of the immune system.  Normally our immune system is there to protect us from things like infections.  But in rheumatoid arthritis something goes wrong, and our immune systems begin to damage our joints.   And it’s this damage to the joints that causes the stiffness and also pain and it can lead to substantial loss of mobility.

It’s not something that can be cured, so the treatment for rheumatoid arthritis will be concerned with trying to stop things from getting worse.  We’d normally aim to help the patient to retain or improve their mobility, and to stop the damage to the joints getting any worse.