Course 2 – Advanced Therapies

Welcome to the JointHealth^TM Education course: Advanced Therapies for Inflammatory Arthritis.

“Inflammatory arthritis” describes the primary types of autoimmune diseases: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). In more moderate, moderate to severe and severe cases, they can be difficult to manage with conventional synthetic disease modifying medications or “csDMARDs” (such as methotrexate, sulfasalazine, leflunomide, hydroxychloroquine, gold salts).

In 2000, medications began to be developed to treat some of the specific molecules that have been found to drive the inflammation, pain and disability in inflammatory types of arthritis. Today, they are referred to as “advanced therapies” (such as biologic originators, biologic biosimilars and targeted small molecule). In other words, they are a therapy “advance” because they are targeted in their approach to disease treatment. They were researched and developed specifically for use in inflammatory forms of arthritis, whereas csDMARDs were researched and developed for other diseases but later found to be effective in some forms of inflammatory arthritis – in other words, “lucky” discoveries.

This three-lesson course is designed to help patients living with inflammatory arthritis identify when the time is right to transition from csDMARDs to an advanced therapy, what key questions to ask about how they are taken and about their benefits and risks. It will also give you a comprehensive look at factors to consider when making your advanced therapy choice.

The Lesson and Lesson Coaching Video will be available for your viewing at your own pace. The Lesson Coaching Video is available in English with French subtitles.

Closed caption is available for all the Lesson Coaching Videos. To activate closed caption, view the video in full screen. Click on the subtitles icon ( ) at the bottom right corner of each video to activate the English closed caption. To auto-translate the English closed caption, click on the setting icon ( ) at the bottom right corner of each video, select “subtitles/CC”, select “auto- translate” and then select a language of your choice. In the event of inaccuracies in the automatically generated translation, the content in the original English video is the official video.