The difference between arthritis and rheumatism

Most people don't know much about arthritis and rheumatism, but patients with arthritis and rheumatism are generally quite familiar with them. Arthritis and rheumatism are common diseases in our human body, and these two diseases are usually more common in the elderly. However, when it comes to the difference between arthritis and rheumatism, many people still don’t know. In fact, most people generally don’t know the difference between arthritis and rheumatism.

The incidence rates of arthritis and rheumatism are generally quite high. To put it another way, there are still quite a lot of patients with arthritis and rheumatism in reality. Arthritis and rheumatism generally cause great physical and mental harm to patients, so understanding the difference between arthritis and rheumatism is beneficial for the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism. So, let’s talk specifically about the differences between arthritis and rheumatism.

Arthritis refers to inflammatory diseases that occur in human joints and surrounding tissues and can be divided into dozens of types. There are more than 100 million arthritis patients in my country, and the number is increasing. The clinical manifestations are redness, swelling, heat, pain, dysfunction and deformity of the joints. In severe cases, it can lead to joint disability and affect the patient's quality of life.

The causes of arthritis are complex and are mainly related to factors such as inflammation, autoimmune response, infection, metabolic disorders, trauma, and degenerative diseases.

Clinical manifestations

1. Pain

It is the main manifestation of arthritis.

2. Swelling

Swelling is a common sign of joint inflammation and does not necessarily correlate with the degree of joint pain.

3. Dysfunction

Joint pain and inflammation cause edema of the tissues around the joints, leading to limited joint movement. Patients with chronic arthritis may suffer from permanent loss of joint function due to long-term limited joint movement.

4. Physical signs

Different types of arthritis have different signs, which may include erythema, deformity, soft tissue swelling, joint redness and swelling, exudate, bone swelling, bone friction sound, tenderness, muscle atrophy or weakness, limited range of joint motion and nerve root compression.

Rheumatism is a group of diseases that mainly affect joints, bones, muscles, blood vessels and related soft tissues or connective tissues, most of which are autoimmune diseases. The onset is often hidden and slow, the course of the disease is long, and most cases have a genetic predisposition. Both diagnosis and treatment are somewhat difficult; different autoantibodies can be detected in the blood, which may be related to different HLA subtypes; there is a good short-term or long-term relief response to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants.

In a broad sense, any disease that causes bone, joint, and muscle pain can be classified as rheumatism. To date, there are more than 100 diseases in the broad classification of rheumatic diseases, including diseases caused by various reasons such as infectious, immune, metabolic, endocrine, genetic, degenerative, tumor, endemic, and toxic. In a narrow sense, it should be limited to dozens of diseases in the fields of internal medicine and immunology. Some of these diseases are interdisciplinary, such as gout, osteoarthritis, infectious arthritis, etc.

Disease classification

1. Arthritis-based: such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Still's disease which is divided into juvenile and adult types, ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and psoriatic arthritis.

2. Infection-related: such as rheumatic fever, Lyme disease, Reiter's syndrome, reactive arthritis.

3. Diffuse connective tissue diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS), systemic sclerosis (SSc), polymyositis (PM), dermatomyositis (DM), mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), vasculitis.

Through the detailed introduction in the above article, I believe everyone should have a certain degree of understanding of the difference between arthritis and rheumatism. Through understanding, we know that the main difference between arthritis and rheumatism is that arthritis is mainly an inflammation of the human joints, while rheumatism is a disease of many tissues and organs of the human body including the joints.