rheumatoid arthritis
A 65-year-old man with advanced rheumatoid arthritis.
joint disease
pathology
Also known as: arthropathy
joint disease, any of the diseases or injuries that affect human joints. Arthritis is no doubt the best-known joint disease, but there are also many others. Diseases of the joints may be variously short-lived or exceedingly chronic, agonizingly painful or merely nagging and uncomfortable; they may be confined to one joint or may affect many parts of the skeleton. For the purposes of this article, two principal categories are distinguished: joint diseases in which inflammation...