Fatigue may persist after rheumatoid arthritis treated, says study

A new study, published in Rheumatology and conducted by the University of Aberdeen, suggests that often people with rheumatoid arthritis can experience fatigue that persists even when the symptoms have been successfully treated.

However, the study says that some patients who are inclined to continued fatigue, may need to be treated in specific ways to alleviate the symptoms if they persist after other symptoms relating to the condition have alleviated.

Researchers drew data from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register for Rheumatoid Arthritis. In participants with severe baseline fatigue, the study identified those who experienced disease remission after six months of treatment, with fatigue response evaluated according to partial or complete remission at follow-up.

Demographic, clinical and psychosocial characteristics were compared between those who responded to treatment with those who did not. Severe baseline fatigue was reported by 2,652 participants, with 271 achieving disease remission after six months. In total, 83% reported partial remission, with these individuals performing better in terms of their psychosocial health status. However, only 37.3% of those who disease symptoms went into remission, saw their fatigue completely alleviate.

As well as generally reporting a poorer health status, these people were generally shown to have a history of hypertension, depression and stroke, as well as baseline treatment use of steroids and antidepressants.

These findings indicate that patients who suffer from persistent fatigue could be identified and offered a more tailored treatment approach.

The researchers concludes, “Despite achieving clinical remission, many rheumatoid arthritis patients do not achieve complete remission of their fatigue.

“Therefore, despite being important in overall disease control, reductions in disease activity are not always sufficient to ameliorate fatigue, so other symptom-specific management approaches must be considered for those for whom fatigue does not resolve.”

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