New grants aim to improve arthritis treatment in children

Arthritis is typically associated with older adults, but it can affect children too.

And researchers at the University of Calgary are exploring better ways to diagnose and treat the disease in youngsters, thanks to $8 million in grants over the next five years.

That thrills 10-year-old Kayla Baayens, who is from Red Deer.

"I think that's amazing," she said. "It's good to be able to figure out what kids need."

• MORE CALGARY NEWS | 'Leisure up, business is still down': Calgary works to fill traveller gap in wake of downturn
• MORE CALGARY NEWS | Years after 9,000 litre fuel spill, province unveils decontamination plan for Bowness Gas Plus site

About 18 months ago, Kayla was hit with an aggressive form of childhood arthritis.

At first, she says she felt tired and stiff all the time. Her parents noticed she was getting thin and lethargic. She wasn't herself.

It progressed to a point where Kayla couldn't brush her teeth or comb her hair. Her neck seized.

"Her neck turned and she was stuck, completely stuck," said her mother, Cindy Baayens. "And she was crying, like 10 to 12 hours a day. She was in constant pain. It was really scary."

Kayla was bedridden for three weeks as her parents and a family doctor tried to figure out what was happening to her.

"You know that there's something very, very wrong, but you don't know exactly what it is, so it's absolutely gut-wrenching," said Kayla's father, Dean Baayens.

Drug program treatment

Kayla was admitted to the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary and a team of doctors was able to diagnose her, but they had to move quickly with the treatment.

"The biggest problem was that she had inflammation of her spine, and when kids have inflammation of their spines, it can bulge into the spinal cord and injure the spinal cord permanently," said Dr. Susanna Benseler, a paediatric rheumatologist.

"We had to choose one treatment that had to work right away."

The team used information gathered from blood tests to come up with a drug program that worked to reduce the inflammation in Kayla's joints.

"Now she's riding her bike. We're going to the park. We're playing grounders," said Dean Baayens. "All the normal sorts of things a 10-year-old kid wants to be able to do. And that was made possible by getting an appropriate diagnosis."

Benseler says the new funding — $5-million of which comes from the Canadian Institute of Health Research — will help a network of doctors from Canada and the Netherlands do the same for other children with arthritis.

"What we've done for Kayla is what we should be able to do for every single child in the country," said Benseler.

Dean and Cindy Baayens are also excited about the research.

"The scariest part of the whole thing was not knowing what she had and if we can find out how to diagnose juvenile arthritis and other conditions like that earlier, the less damage that will occur to the child's joints and the quicker you can get on the appropriate medications that can help to make a difference," said Dean Baayens.