The effect of physical training on patients with rheumatoid arthritis: changes in disease activity, muscle strength and aerobic capacity. A clinically controlled minimized cross-over study.

For decades, physical training of rheumatoid arthritis (RA)-patients has been controversial, especially for patients with active disease. The aim of this study was to investigate whether RA-patients could receive graduated training without increasing the activity of the disease. In a controlled cross-over study the effect of graduated progressive training has been evaluated in 18 RA-patients with moderately active disease. The training was performed twice weekly with aerobic conditioning and strength exercises progressing to strenuous exercises over an 8-week period. The design was a crossover project with two groups obtained by minimisation. After training the patients had significantly fewer swollen joints than before. Training of the muscles acting over the swollen joints resulted in more than a 35% decrease in the number of swollen joints. The hemoglobin level increased significantly after the training period. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate, the complement factor C3d, and the number of sore joints remained unchanged. A decrease in the need for medicine was non-significant. From this study it appears that RA-patients with some activity are trainable without aggravating the disease, even in the chronically swollen joints. The rheumatoid arthritis activity decreased with fewer swollen joints and higher hemoglobin level after training.