On morning stiffness
Steinberg, A.D.
Journal of Rheumatology 5(1): 3-6
1978
ISSN/ISBN: 0315-162X PMID: 641912 Document Number: 130687
Physicians use morning stiffness as a shorthand for the morning increase in musculoskeletal symptoms of which patients complain. Although difficulty moving is a part of the symptom complex, additional features may be important. Morning stiffness may occur in diseases other than the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) which it is often used to diagnose. Patients with RA generally show morning stiffness of long duration (1 h or more) and pain on motion of the affected part. Patients with severe synovitis causing around the clock pain may improve with treatment to the point that they recognize their symptoms as morning stiffness and then improve further to morning stiffness without much pain, and finally to an absence of morning stiffness. Patients with increasingly severe arthritis may complain of no morning stiffness, morning stiffness of short duration, usually less than 30 min, without pain, morning stiffness of increasing duration associated with increasing pain and severe pain. Although this symptom complex is characteristically seen in RA, it may also be a feature of patients with a variety of other diseases.