Abstract
In order to clarify the effects of biologic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (biologic DMARDs) and rehabilitation for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, we investigated disease activity, grip strength, upper limb disorder and Activities of Daily Living (ADL) classifying each of 30 patients who did not use biologic DMARDs and 28 patients who used biologic DMARDs into two groups of not having rehabilitative intervention and having rehabilitative intervention, respectively. The measurements were done before and one, three and six months after the intervention. The rehabilitation was set as “intensive training” having dual tracks of individual training that was performed five times in two weeks and self training, and “home training” to be performed at home after the program. Regardless of whether the biologic DMARDs was used, disease activity and upper limb disorder were significantly improved by the intervention with rehabilitation after one, three and six months. Also, improvement of grip strength for the group that used biologic DMARDs was maintained in a similar manner one month after the rehabilitation. On the other hand, no items were improved for the group that did not use biologic DMARDs and rehabilitation.
The intervention of rehabilitation for the patients of rheumatoid arthritis was effective and its effectiveness seemed to contribute to better improvement when it was combined with use of biologic DMARDs.
