The spectrum of paediatric and adolescent rheumatology

A wide range of conditions comes under the umbrella of paediatric rheumatology. These problems are common in childhood and cover a wide variety of presentations and outcomes. Many conditions are benign and self-limiting, others run a chronic relapsing and remitting course; some are fatal. Broadly, rheumatological problems can be subdivided into inflammatory, mechanical, and behaviourally or psychologically driven aetiologies, although these are not mutually exclusive.

The majority of patients with rheumatological conditions will present with symptoms that are easily localized to the musculoskeletal system. Sometimes, however, a child with a rheumatological condition may present less specifically: for example with fatigue, deterioration in school performance or growth retardation. In this case a rheumatological aetiology may be overlooked unless it is specifically suspected and a careful assessment for musculoskeletal symptoms and signs is undertaken. In order to arrive at the correct diagnosis and plan appropriate further management, it is therefore important for the clinician both to have an effective system to ensure that musculoskeletal symptoms are appropriately determined and assessed, and to be aware of the wide range of conditions, which can cause such symptoms in childhood and adolescence. The keys to this lie in acquiring the clinical skills necessary to accurately assess such patients and awareness of the changing differential diagnosis with the age of the child. In this chapter, we aim to address these issues, initially by discussing the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in children and adolescents and the various conditions which cause them, and subsequently by looking at common presentations of rheumatic disease in childhood and suggesting an approach to diagnosis in each case.

Keywords: children, adolescents, musculoskeletal symptoms, joint pains, rheumatic diseases, vasculitis, connective tissue diseases, arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritits, hypermobility syndromes, back pain, differential diagnosis