The frequency of surgeries for lumbar spinal stenosis among Medicare recipients decreased slightly between 2002 and 2007, but the use of complex procedures increased substantially.

A history of cancer is not a major risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but there is an increased lymphoma risk after RA diagnosis.

Children with Lyme arthritis have an excellent prognosis. Treatment of patients who have antibiotic-refractory Lyme arthritis with NSAIDs, intra-articular corticosteroid injections, or disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is safe and effective, with no evidence of chronic arthritis, permanent joint changes, or breakthrough cases of persistent infection.

After a sharp decline in the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over the previous 4 decades, it appears to have increased slightly in women in more recent years, along with an increase in prevalence.

Contrary to earlier reports, oral bisphosphonate use in older patients at high risk for osteoporosis does not appear to be associated with a significant risk of subsequent musculoskeletal pain.

The deleterious effects of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on employment and productivity are clearly associated with a burden on the US economy. However, RA also has significant “social costs” for both employed and unemployed persons.

Proprioceptive and neuromuscular training help reduce the incidence of some types of injuries among adolescent and young adult athletes participating in sports that involve pivoting. Balance exercises and multi-interventional training programs (balance plus strength and flexibility maneuvers) may be particularly effective in preventing basketball, soccer, handball, and floorball injuries.

For patients who have ankylosing spondylitis (AS), radiographic assessment of the sacroiliac joint with MRI is the cornerstone of evaluation and treatment. Erosions alone—rather than bone marrow edema or contrast medium enhancement—are the most disease-specific measurable imaging findings in sacroiliac MRI of patients with AS in clinical practice.

There is a small absolute risk of diabetes mellitus (DM) in patients who receive statin therapy, but that risk is easily outweighed by the benefit that statins provide in reducing cardiovascular (CV) events. Therefore, clinical practice does not need to change for patients with moderate or high CV risk or existing CV disease.

Prediction of fractures is specific for the patient’s sex and the site of bone mineral density (BMD) measurement. This finding challenges the practice of using similar models—and of measuring BMD at the hip only—to predict fracture risk for men and for women.

Key aspects of the usual care that general practitioners provide for patients with low back pain (LBP) do not align with the care recommended in evidence-based guidelines. The likely result is less than optimal outcomes.

There is a high prevalence of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) deficiency in older men who have radiographic hip osteoarthritis (OA). Because 25(OH)D plays a significant role in bone and cartilage maintenance, therapeutic interventions with vitamin D are warranted to augment their skeletal health.

MRI abnormalities that resemble rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pathologies often are found in the metacarpophalangeal and wrist joints of healthy persons. Although MRI is highly sensitive for tracking the progression of erosions, it has low specificity for RA, suggesting caution in the interpretation of joint lesions on MRI, especially in early arthritis.

Exercise training provides an effective means for reducing anxiety symptoms, with minimal risk of adverse events. Anxiety reduction is a favorable outcome of exercise interventions that were designed as a primary treatment or adjuvant for medical conditions other than anxiety.

Separate patterns of comorbidity are identified in patients who have fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and noninflammatory rheumatic disorders (NIRD). The patterns include the type of comorbid variables reported and their associations with age and disease duration.

There are significant associations between the increased numbers of telangiectases in patients with scleroderma and the presence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Cutaneous telangiectases may be a manifestation of the vasculopathy of scleroderma that could serve as a clinical biomarker for pulmonary vascular disease.

For girls who play soccer, participation in a multifaceted injury prevention program that combines education, proper motion patterns, strength, and balance may reduce the incidence of acute knee injuries significantly. It also may lessen the severity of injuries that do occur.

The prevalence of obesity in the United States remains high, exceeding 30% in most sex and age groups. However, the prevalence may not be continuing at as high a level as in earlier periods, especially in women and perhaps in men.

Although sleep often is disturbed in persons with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), activity-related exacerbation of symptoms is not related to poor sleep. In fact, persons with CFS often sleep better after engaging in exercise.

Late-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), often considered to have a benign disease course, actually involves greater disease activity and comorbidities than early-onset SLE. Differences in disease activity may be associated with an interaction between the SLE and age.