Rheumatology is a subspecialty in the practice of both internal medicine and pediatrics. This means that a doctor must first become either an internal medicine practitioner or a pediatrician and then subspecialize, receive extra education and clinical practice, in the specialty of rheumatology. A doctor who practices rheumatology will be devoted to diagnosis and treatment of individuals who suffer from rheumatic based diseases.
In years past the diagnosis or terminology of “rheumatism” was used. Today, it’s mainly used by the public, but is no longer used in medical or technical literature. The traditional term was used to cover a huge range of medical diagnoses and therefore has come to mean very little. The major types of rheumatic pain include Ankylosing Spondylitis, Bursitis or Tendinitis, Arthritis, Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease, Lupus, Tenosynovitis, Capsulitis and neck pain. Although these all have very little in common in terms of their origins, they do have two commonalities – they cause chronic pain and are difficult to treat.
The term rheumatology originates from a Greek word that means “which flows as a river or stream”. This may have been in response to the type and degree of pain which an individual will suffer from over the remainder of their life span. Today, rheumatology is a rapidly advancing medical field, due in part to the technological advancements made in imaging studies and the treatment of immunological disorders.
A rheumatologist, a physician who practices rheumatology, will treat autoimmune diseases, musculoskeletal pain disorders and osteoporosis. There are at least 100 different types of diseases that fall into these categories, also including Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis, Gout and Fibromyalgia. Some of the diseases which are treated are very serious, difficult to diagnose and treat, while others are more simple to identify but still difficult to obtain adequate pain control for the individual.
| Advertisement | |
 |
|
Leave a Reply