‘Time to move’ on arthritis

Prepared over a period of 12 months, the white paper, titled Time to Move, is a national collaborative policy white paper spearheaded by Arthritis Australia that provides an affordable, achievable strategy for improving care from childhood onwards for people with arthritis – specifically osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

Ainslie Cahill, Arthritis Australia chief executive, claims much of the pain and disability caused by arthritis can be prevented, or reduced, by providing better care for people as early as possible in the disease course.

Ms Cahill says the white paper highlights that care for people with arthritis in Australia falls well short of best practice and urgent improvements are needed.

“Comprehensive and effective management of arthritis involves a team of healthcare professionals from various disciplines, including GPs, physiotherapists and rheumatologists,” she says.

“Having multidisciplinary healthcare teams available to improve an individual’s overall functioning, along with equitable access to best care across the country, will help to preserve and improve quality of life for people with arthritis.”

Previous surveys conducted by Arthritis Australia reveal a large number of unhappy patients and doctors who were dissatisfied with the care they were receiving or the care they were providing for people with arthritis.

Starting treatment as early as possible for people with RA, ideally within 12 weeks of symptom onset, is reportedly critical to avoid permanent joint damage and disability.

Rheumatologist, Dr Mona Marabani, says a diagnosis of RA needs to be “treated as an emergency” as early treatment may help to stop the disease in its tracks, cutting joint damage and disease severity by a third and doubling the chance of achieving remission.

“The evidence though, is that Australians with RA are not being diagnosed early enough, so effective treatment is delayed, leading to a preventable burden of pain and disability. Average delays of six months to diagnosis have recently been reported,” Dr Marabani claims.

Professor David Hunter, leading arthritis researcher at the University of Sydney, agrees that early intervention and treatment is crucial.

“For some reason, both doctors and patients think osteoarthritis is inevitable and there isn’t much you can do about it, except wait until the pain is so bad that you need a joint replacement,” Professor Hunter says.

“Yet the evidence shows that avoiding excess weight gain and joint injuries can prevent most cases of osteoarthritis, while weight loss and appropriate exercise can reduce symptoms and stop them getting worse once you have the condition. In fact if you exercise with OA the right way, you can get the same level of effect as from the usual pain killing drugs, but without the side effects,” he explains.

A small investment in better sports coaching at school and club level, supporting weight loss and exercise for people in the early stages of the disease and providing better systems for assessing people for joint replacement surgery could save hundreds of millions of dollars in health system costs if implemented Australia wide, he says.

There are more than 100  types of arthritis affecting people of all ages, including children. The most common forms are osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and, in children, juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

With Australia’s ageing population, it’s predicted that seven million Australians will suffer from some form of arthritis by 2050.