Have you ever know that rheumatism is just a common name for all rheumatic diseases without specifying the types! While rheumatism is a word that describes unspecified rheumatic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in the joints. This disease happens mostly to women at their middle age, but it also happens to young people. In addition, this disease develops differentially depending on the patients’ condition and because of its unspecific symptoms. As a result, there is just general treatment to reduce these symptoms, so many people with the disease lose their joint's function. According to the BMJ, "globally, rheumatoid arthritis was ranked as the [42nd] highest contributor to global disability."[1]
Throughout history, many physicians tried to describe rheumatoid arthritis and gave it an accurate name. The first physician that noticed the disease was Landré Beauvais, who examined patients with severe joint pain and then hypothesized that these people had an uncharacterized condition, which Landré named “Primary Asthenic Gout.” [2] Although
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Many patients with rheumatoid arthritis can develop lung diseases that affect their life. According to the Arthritis Foundation, “up to 80 percent of people with [rheumatoid arthritis] have some degree of lung involvement, which is usually not severe enough to cause symptoms.” [3] For instance, people who are at the last stage and have severe inflammation can develop a disease called pulmonary fibrosis, which is a lung disease that makes breathing difficult for patients. Because this disease has no cure, it usually worsens the patient’s condition over time. Furthermore, rheumatoid arthritis can affect the heart when the inflammation damages the endothelial cells that cause the blood vessels to form plaques. These plaques block the blood vessels and cause heart attack and stroke for the