[Rheumatoid arthritis and the marine climate]

After defining rheumatoid arthritis as a diffuse disease of the connective tissue developing into ankylosis, stress is laid on the need for rehabilitation measures to back up basic medical treatment. The use of physical means is strictly conditioned in R.A. by the scrupulous search for the physiotherapeutic phase of the disease to avoid new acute phases. The marine climate as therapy can be excluded in the classical sense where air and rest are the only treatments. It is useful to associate climatotherapeutic technique and prudent balneotherapy and kinesitherapy, but only after identifying the physiotherapeutic phase of the disease. As criteria of effectiveness of the therapeutic possibilities of a stay by the sea, subjective parameters (pain), objective parameters (joint tumefaction) and serological parameters may be adopted.