Rheumatic Fever
The Etiology, Incidence and Treatment of Rheumatic Fever Today
Like many diseases such as smallpox and polio, Zamula (1987) reports that until fairly recently, rheumatic fever was described by most public health officials as being a vanishing disease. "After World War II," Patlak (1991) reports, "the number of cases of rheumatic fever dramatically declined until, during the 20 years between 1965 and 1985 alone, the yearly number of cases of rheumatic fever among school-age children dropped by more than 90%" (p. 24). At the time, clinicians assumed that less crowded living conditions and the use of antibiotics were controlling the disease and some physicians called rheumatic fever a "vanishing disease in suburbia" (Patlak, p. 24). As a result, the children's hospitals that were previously dedicated to the care of rheumatic fever sufferers closed because of a lack of patients and disease registries that had been rigorously maintained by some states to track outbreaks of the disease were not updated. Not surprisingly, rheumatic fever, together with its concomitant risk of serious heart complications, reappeared in some parts of the country in a particularly virulent form during the last years of the 20th century (Zamula, 1987). To help determine the threat represented by this disease today, this paper provides a recapitulation of the signs and symptoms of the disease, how it is diagnosed, treatment options, the population affected, and long-term outcomes.
Review and Discussion
Signs and symptoms.
The name "rheumatic fever" is derived from two of the disease's most common symptoms: 1) joint pains and 2) fever. According to Zamula, "When rheumatic fever develops, it appears a few weeks after a strep throat, usually when the patient seems to be fully recovered. In children, the illness often begins with a fever -- sometimes...
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