Various Types Of Arthritis
By Juliet

Arthritis is a disease that causes pain and loss of movement of the joints. Joint pain is referred to as arthralgia. is the leading cause of disability in people over the age of 55. The causes of depend on the form of arthritis. Causes include injury (leading to osteoarthritis), abnormal metabolism (such as gout and pseudogout), inheritance, infections, and for unclear reasons (such as rheumatoid and systemic lupus erythematosus). There are many forms of .There are about 200 different kinds of arthritis. The most common type is osteoarthritis (or degenerative arthritis), where the cartilage that protects the bones gets worn away. This makes joints stiff, painful and creaky. About 5 million people in the UK have osteoarthritis. OA is a chronic degenerative arthropathy that frequently leads to chronic pain and disability. With the aging of our population, this condition is becoming increasing prevalent and its treatment increasingly financially burdensome. Using radiographic criteria, the distal and proximal interphalangeal joints of the hand have been identified as the joints most commonly affected by OA, but they are the least likely to be symptomatic. Age is the most consistently identified risk factor for OA, regardless of the joint being studied. Prevalence rates for both radiographic OA and, to a lesser extent, symptomatic OA rise steeply after age 50 in men and age 40 in women. Occupation-related repetitive injury and physical trauma contribute to the development of secondary (non-idiopathic) OA, sometimes occurring in joints that are not affected by primary (idiopathic) OA, such as the metacarpophalangeal joints, wrists and ankles.

Rheumatoid (RA) is traditionally considered a chronic, inflammatory autoimmune disorder. Rheumatoid occurs when the body's defence mechanisms go into action when there's no threat and start attacking the joints and sometimes other parts of the body. RA affects 2.1 million Americans, or about 1% of the adult population in the United States. This disease is 2 to 3 times more common in women than in men, and generally affects people between the ages of 20 and 50. However, young children can develop a form of RA called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Two of the 100 types of are rheumatoid and lupus. There are specific symptoms, distinguishing characteristics, as well as overlapping symptoms associated with rheumatoid and lupus. Rheumatoid is an additive polyarthritis, with the sequential addition of involved joints, in contrast to the migratory or evanescent of systemic lupus erythematosus or the episodic of gout. Occasionally, patients experience an explosive polyarticular onset occurring over 24 to 48 hours. Morning stiffness, persisting more than one hour but often lasting several hours, may be a feature of any inflammatory but is especially characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis. Its duration is a useful gauge of the inflammatory activity of the disease.

Psoriatic is related to the skin condition psoriasis. It occurs more commonly in patients with tissue type HLA-B27. There are five clinical patterns

#ARTICLE_CONTENT2