As the developing the illness condition, patients’ joints begin to deform or lose the mobility. Up to now, there is no certain single standard for the assessment of patients’functional status, while the following classify are adopted widely in clinical.
LevelⅠ: patients can act normally without any limitation;
LevelⅡ: although there are medium limitation, patients are still able to adapt;
Level Ⅲ: severe limitation, and patients can not finish most daily normal work or activity.
Level Ⅳ: lose mobility and patients have to lie in bed or rely on wheelchair for activity.
The exact pathogenesis and is not very clear up to now and there is no specific medicines, but early and formal treatment can get most patients’ condition be relieved and maintain the normal work and life. Otherwise, patients will lost the best treatment opportunity and cause in irreversible pathologic change and joint function loss. Therefore, standardized treatment of RA is very important.
The standardized treatment including early treatment, combination medication and individualized principle of treatment.
1, early treatment.
Early positive treatment belongs to the change of treatment concept. Synovitis of RA progresses very soon in the first 1-2 years, and 50% of damage of cartilage or bone. If patients can get early diagnosis and early treatment and grasp the best time of treatment, it can greatly improve the prognosis and life quality.
2, combination medication.
If patients adopt the traditional pyramid treatment schedule, patients are more likely to miss the best treatment time. (Pyramid treatment schedule means that patients first adopt NSAIDs for a period of time, if the effects are not ideal, then add DMARDs for treatment. If the effects are still not good, cytotoxic drugs are needed). In the traditional treatment schedule, it usually takes 1-2 years time, patients lost the best treatment opportunity if the effects are not very good. Therefore, it is necessary to take the combination medication of NSAIDs, DMARDs and cytotoxic drugs according to personal condition to control disease progression in the first time.
3, individualized principle of treatment.
As is well-known, RA is a type of heterogeneity disease. Clinical manifestation and reaction to the treatment and prognosis vary much from patient to patient. Accordingly, the treatment or medication should be specialized. For the detail specialized treatment and medication options, you can refer to this.
