What is JIA?

♪(music)♪ Streaming Well ♪(music)♪ Arthritis Care Empowering People with Arthritis ♪(music)♪ What is JIA and what are its symptoms? JIA is short for juvenile idiopathic arthritis and it means any arthritis that starts before the age of 16. Joint pain, stiffness, and swelling are the main symptoms. But there's a lot of variation in how bad the symptoms are and which joints are affected. Nobody, unfortunately, really knows the cause at the moment. It's an immune condition and it may be a response to an infection. JIA affects 1 child in about 1,000. So it's not that rare. Even so, most aches and pains in youngsters are not JIA. But it's important for parents to understand what their child's symptoms might be so that they know when it might be more serious. ♪(music)♪ Who does it affect? Someone of any age can have JIA because, of course, youngsters who have it grow up. Occasionally, it runs in families. But usually it doesn't. When it starts, most children are under 8 and some are just babies. It very much depends on the type. There's several different kinds of JIA. The most common is when it starts in one or just several joints. That's called oligoarthritis and it usually hits children of primary school age. With polyarthritis, many joints are affected, often all at once, and the youngster can feel very unwell. Systemic JIA is rare, but it's more likely in toddlers. A child can have a rash, fever, and large lymph glands, tiredness, and weight loss. In fact, joint swelling isn't usually very obvious. Nowadays, children with JIA do very well. But it needs to be diagnosed and treated promptly to get the best outcome. ♪(music)♪ What treatments are available? These days there are many different treatments for JIA like drugs that act on the immune system to suppress the disease. The aims of treatment are to slow down the disease process, to control pain and other symptoms, to keep joints working well and enable more growth, and of course everything else that a growing child needs and that will include exercise, education, and socializing. So treating JIA could include medication. It could include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, counseling, or of course a combination of all of these. Exercise is really vital because a lot of children with arthritis benefit hugely from swimming or hydrotherapy and other gentle exercises and weight-bearing exercises help strengthen the bones. Good food is important. It fuels growth and it lifts mood, as well. I think equally important though is helping children develop their own coping skills and to become independent. It's really tough for parents because a parent's natural instinct is to be protective. But children with JIA need to grow up, as well. When I first treated children with arthritis about 30 years ago, the main remedies were Aspirin and gold injections. A lot of them developed long-time joint problems. But all that has changed. These days most young people with JIA can live normal lives. ♪(music)♪ Arthritis Care Free Helpline: 0800 800 4050 www.arthritiscare.org.uk ♪(music)♪ Streaming Well www.streamingwell.com