Abstract:
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a particularly debilitating autoimmune disease, which causes chronic inflammation of the joints especially in the hands and legs. Autoimmune diseases are illnesses, which occur when the body tissues are mistakenly attacked by its own immune system. RA is a systemic disease that not only affects joints but also causes inflammation of the blood vessels, anaemia, nodules, fever, weight loss and fatigue. The tissue around the joints, such as the tendons, ligaments, and muscles as well as other organs in the body can also become inflamed. In some patients with RA, chronic inflammation leads to the destruction of the cartilage, bone and ligaments causing deformity of the joints. The life span of a sufferer can be reduced by up to10 years (Oster and McColl 2001).Keywords:
Joint disease
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Hyaline cartilage
Hyaline
Synovial joint
Inflammatory arthritis
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Hypertrophic Osteoarthropathy
Periostitis
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Rheumatoid factor
Proband
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Rheumatoid nodule
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Elite athletics requires maximum effort by the pursuer, exposing the tendons, ligaments and muscles, including the heart muscle, to intense and frequent mechanical and metabolic demands, which may increase the susceptibility to, and severity of, infections in these tissues. Furthermore, intense and frequent exercise with insufficient resting periods can compromise the immune system. Muscles and tendons are more vulnerable to overuse injuries in the recovery period following various infections. Although the etiology and pathogenesis of a substantial proportion of cases of tendinitis and tendinosis are still largely unknown, gram-positive cocci prevail as the most common etiologies in soft tissue infections. The recent identification of binding sites of staphylococci to intercellular tissue matrix components have opened up the possibility of selectively blocking such binding by prior vaccination. New molecular biological methods, enabling the identification of slow-growing bacteria that are difficult to culture, including Bartonella and Rickettsia, have created the possibility of studying the potential role also of such organisms in soft tissue conditions, including myocarditis. Acute myocarditis remains the most frequent form of myocarditis, commonly emerging in the course of an acute respiratory infection. Since myocarditis episodes are frequently subclinical and self-healing, athletes (and others) should generally be recommended rest during infections, especially during the early phase of the infection.
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Joint disease
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Inflammatory response
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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disease that causes pain, swelling, stiffness, and loss of function in the joints. It occurs in a symmetrical pattern, which means that if one knee or hand is involved, the other is also (Box 1). It is a chronic, progressive, inflammatory tissue disorder of unknown origin and in addition to joint stiffness, ankylosis (fixation of a joint), and associated joint deformity, patients may have systemic involvement of the eyes, kidneys, chest, and lungs (Ryan, 1995). It is thought that the autoimmune component of the disease can have significant multi-system effects, including scleritis (inflammation of the white of the eye, the sclera), pericarditis, pleural effusions, vasculitis (patchy inflammation of the walls of small blood vessels), and skin ulceration (Oliver and Mooney, 2002).
Sclera
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