International Annual Conference

Rheumatology in Anthroposophic Medicine (16-19 September 2010)

Inflammatory-rheumatic diseases are among the most prevalent and serious today, worldwide. In conventional therapy, immunosuppressive drugs are used, but only after the illness has been full-blown for weeks. Anthroposophic rheumatology can recognize early stages of inflammatory-rheumatic disease the moment that the first skeletal pains arise – by taking into account the constellation of symptoms and the individual biography. This makes it possible to start treatment early and thereby greatly improve the prognosis. A supportive therapeutic community is required, which can be created by determined collaboration between doctors and nurses, as well as physiotherapists, art therapists and psychotherapists, who together assist the patient in making necessary changes to his or her life.

The lectures and forums of this mid-September conference will focus primarily on chronic articular rheuma, and will feature the presentation of a prospectively designed multi-cohort study that Ludger Simon and colleagues have now successfully completed after four years of work. In addition, seminars and workshops will address the entire spectrum of rheumatic diseases, with the aim of cultivating a deeper understanding of this form of illness, while exploring and communicating possibilities for preventing it.