title: How to assess musculoskeletal conditions. Assessment of disease activity.
abstract: The concept of disease activity is useful for characterizing chronic rheumatic diseases and their current degree of severity. Disease activity should be clearly differentiated from damage, which is irreversible. A number of requirements must be met in order to make a measure of disease activity acceptable and valid. Methods for measurement have been developed in the areas of biological, radiographic, ultrasound and computerized imaging techniques. Recently, a particular effort has been made to develop questionnaires in the form of complex indices, derived from the observations of physicians, and self-report questionnaires for patients. Such assessments of disease activity are available for most of the chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases. They are particularly relevant at a time when new biological drug therapy is being developed. Research effort is needed to develop more instruments suitable for use in clinical practice for individual patients.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology, Health Economics and Prevention, School of Public Health, BP 184, Faculty of Medicine 54505 Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France. francis.guillemin@sante-pub.u-nancy.fr
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guillemin
mesh_terms: D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006801:Humans; D008180:Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic / Q000175:diagnosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012216:Rheumatic Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013167:Spondylitis, Ankylosing / Q000175:diagnosis