Transforming the lives of rheumatic patients

Throughout the past 4 months, Fundación Maritere has been supporting its patients with several medicaments and physiotherapy techniques to decrease their amount of pain. In order to monitor and evaluate their progress, doctor at the Foundation, apply the HAQ (Health Assessment Questionnaire), which is a tool used to assess a patient's functional capacity. It is commonly used to monitor and evaluate patients with rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Another tool applied is the The Disease Activity Score-28 for Rheumatoid Arthritis (DAS28) describes severity of rheumatoid arthritis using clinical and laboratory data. On the other hand, phyisiotherapists at the Foundation apply the visual analogue scale (VAS), that measures the amount of pain the patients are sensing. It is a line with two descriptors at each end, representing the extremes of the sensation being measured. The results of the HAQ show that 80% of patients that had a severe or moderate incapacity, moved to a low incapacity range by the end of december. On the other hand, the results of the DAS28 demonstrate that 42% of patients with RA presente complete remission, meaning a total disappearance of symptoms. Also, more tan 600 physiotherapy sessions were given, after which patients with RA demonstrated a decrease from 9 to 3 in the VAS scale. One of this patients is Ceci, who has improved considerably in this period. She belongs to the 80% that moved from a severe to a low capacity range.