Joint pain, stiffness that prevents certain movements, chronic fatigue… This is the daily lot of patients with rheumatism chronic inflammation. Frequent in the elderly, some diseases of this type can however appear from childhood, such as rheumatoid arthritis. From then on, harmless gestures of everyday life become difficult because of these rheumatisms. Spondyloarthritis, psoriatic arthritis or lupus erythematosus cause these same difficulties.
To fight against the isolation of patients and in particular young people, the French Association for the Fight against Rheumatism (AFLAR) has launched a social network dedicated to patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatism. Named “Rhuma’talk”, it was designed by patients themselves and launched in early July. It aims to create a space for discussion, advice and support for patients.
In January 2014, a study conducted by the European League Against Rheumatism evaluated the quality of life of young people aged 18 to 35 with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases in Europe. She had observed that more than half of the patients complained of the impact of their disease on their professional life. In addition, only 32% of respondents had no difficulty talking about their illness to their relatives and 17% did not talk about it at all to their family.
Already endowed with about thirty subscribers, this new platform for exchanges between patients should allow them to help each other to better tackle this disease on a daily basis.
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