Unacceptable Pain, Limitations and Costs
While many people mistakenly think of arthritis as an inevitable part of aging, or as nuisance aches and pains that afflict only the elderly, it actually strikes people of all ages. Two-thirds of people with arthritis are under the age of 65, including 300,000 children.
Arthritis can be severe, debilitating and even fatal. Annually, the disease causes about 44 million outpatient visits, almost a million hospitalizations and more than 9,000 deaths. Nearly 21 million adults report activity limitations due to arthritis. In fact, arthritis is a more frequent cause of activity limitation than heart disease, cancer or diabetes, and more than half of all adults with diabetes or heart disease also have arthritis.
At the current rate, an estimated 67 million Americans (one in four adults) will have a form of the disease within 20 years. Moreover, arthritis and related conditions cost $128 billion annually in medical expenses, lost earnings and reduced productivity. The Arthritis Foundation maintains that the heavy toll arthritis takes is unacceptable, and that arthritis must be taken as seriously as other chronic diseases because of its devastating impact.
Read more about this topic: Joints In Motion
Famous quotes containing the words unacceptable, limitations and/or costs:
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“Growing up means letting go of the dearest megalomaniacal dreams of our childhood. Growing up means knowing they can’t be fulfilled. Growing up means gaining the wisdom and skills to get what we want within the limitations imposed by reality—a reality which consists of diminished powers, restricted freedoms and, with the people we love, imperfect connections.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“It costs more to maintain ten vices than one virtue.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)