Articular and vascular manifestations of polymyalgia rheumatica.

Polymyalgia rheumatica is a syndrome encountered by no means infrequently in middle-aged and elderly people. It is characterized by pains and stiffness, which are more severe in the morning, are felt to be in the shoulder and hip girdle muscles and often in the spine and are usually associated with fatigue, malaise, anorexia, loss of weight, and depression. The most constant laboratory finding is a raised erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), which is often elevated out of proportion to the demonstrable physical abnormalities.