ERU Medical Faculty Hospitals organized an awareness event on the occasion of “October 12 World Arthritis Day”.

As part of the event, a press conference was first held at the Gevher Nesibe Hospital. Academic staff members of the Faculty of Medicine Assoc. Prof. Abdurrahman Soner Şenel, Assoc. Prof. Ayşenur Paç Kısaarslan, Assoc. Prof. Gizem Cengiz, Melih Kızıltepe (MD), and Res. Asst. Hüseyin Kaplan attended the meeting.

Making a speech at the meeting, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Abdurrahman Soner Şenel stated that the World Arthritis Day has been celebrated since 1996 and drew attention to how common and critical rheumatic diseases are. He pointed out that arthritis is a serious disease that causes limitation of movement and pain in the joints and emphasized that rheumatoid arthritis, in particular, is the most common inflammatory joint disease that can lead to disability. In addition, he drew attention to the importance of early diagnosis and treatment in arthritis and said that rheumatoid arthritis considerably restricts the daily life of patients and negatively affects social and psychological quality of life.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayşenur Paç Kısaarslan stated that children can also have chronic rheumatism and said, “Since childhood rheumatism affects a long period of life, we do our best to overcome this rheumatic disease with a multidisciplinary approach with ophthalmologists, doctors in physical therapy, orthopedists, psychiatrists and dieticians.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gizem Cengiz stated that arthritis is a treatable disease as long as the treatment is not interrupted.

Melih Kızıltepe, MD, and Res. Asst. Hüseyin Kaplan also gave information about the symptoms of the disease.