That article looks really interesting, and I don’t think we’ve seen it before, Meg. I wasn’t able to put my finger on the full text of it, but I was able to find an abstract:
Early psoriatic arthritis: facing the challenge.
Deborah Palmer, Y El Miedany
Clinical Nurse Specialist at Rheumatology Department, North Middlesex University Hospital, London.
British journal of nursing (Mark Allen Publishing) 09/2013; 22(17):1014-20.
Source: PubMed
ABSTRACT Early diagnosis and initiation of therapy has become a primary objective in clinical rheumatology. As psoriatic arthritis causes deformities and joint damage leading to impaired quality of life and function as well as increased mortality risk, there was an urgent call for action aiming at inducing remission of the active inflammatory process. Until the year 2000 there were no treatments that led to a reduction in progression of joint damage. However, with the advent of anti-tumour necrosis factor agents, it is now possible to arrest the progression of damage in these patients. Therefore, the concept of window of opportunity, that is early assessment and management in specialist clinics, has been extended to psoriatic arthritis with successful outcomes among psoriatic arthritis patients similar to those with rheumatoid arthritis. Although all this sounds plausible, early psoriatic arthritis assessment remains limited to research as setting up this type of service in standard clinical practice faces several challenges that would need tackling. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of these challenges and suggest a paradigm for use in standard clinical practice to identify early psoriatic arthritis patients.
Mod note: Post being moved to “PsA News and Research” thread. Thanks, Meg!
I’m actually just studying business! But in many classes we have to do power point presentations, so I take every opportunity I get to spread the word about arthritis!