Influence of physiotherapy on pain sensation level in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Joanna Kądziołka
Joanna Grzegorczyk
Email src
Agnieszka Rawska
Z Instytutu Fizjoterapii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego
Faculty of Medicine, University of Rzeszow, Rzeszow, Poland
WSIiZ Rzeszów, Katedra Zdrowia Publicznego

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease from the group of systemic disorders of connective tissue, which contributes to multi-organic complications. The requisite for improvement is a concurrent action on pain, inflammation, regulating and lightening the muscle tension. A survey has been carried, whose purpose was to estimate the influence of physiotherapy procedures on the level of perceptible pain in RA patients on the base of the subjective assessment of the respondents. ‘50 patients participated in the survey, who were being treated at the Rheumatology Ward of Hospital nr 2 in Reeszow. They were at the age of 30 — 82 years old (59,5 on average) who had been suffering from RA for different periods of time — from 3 weeks to 50 years (12,7 years on average). For the measuring of subjective pain perception the Visual-Analogue Scale (VAS). The degrees of pain intensity before and after physiotherapy were compared as well as the effectiveness of procedures in hospital, ‘out-patients’ clinic and spa conditions and finally the span of improvement. On the base of the respondents’ answers, the survey has demonstrated that the above-mentioned procedures result in a decrease of pain perception in RA patients. Also the analgetic effectiveness of physiotherapy has been confirmed and the patients’ opinions have been taken into account in order to decide on the most appropriate procedures sof therapeutic character. Finally, it has been noticed that extra spa treatment, supported by balneotherapy at the time of remission can significantly influence the further pain decrease and lengthen the period of improvement.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited