Meet 12-year-old Sharyce

Sharyce suffers from Psoriatic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) and often experiences pain, swelling and stiffness in her joints and has permanently reduced movement in her wrists. This means she has difficulty writing at school for long periods and often experiences pain when playing sport. Unfortunately Sharyce also has reduced strength in her hands because of the arthritis in her wrists.

JIA affects up to one in 500 Australian children, and if left undiagnosed, has the potential to cause growth restriction, muscle wasting, joint damage and lowered aerobic capacity. As part of her treatment, Sharyce takes immunosuppressive medication and recently required steroid injections to some of her joints to help control a flare of disease. She also sees our team of occupational therapists on a regular basis to help her maximise her wrist function.

Quite often, children with the same subtype of JIA respond differently to the same treatment. Those children who respond poorly to treatment are at risk of long-term joint damage. Researchers at the Children's Research Centre and the Department of Rheumatology at the Women's and Children's Hospital are focusing on finding "biomarkers" which can predict disease activity and natural history more accurately than we can do at present. In this way, we hope to be able to plan treatment on a more individualised basis.

We need your help to further this important research. Please donate here to make a difference to Sharyce and the lives of other children with JIA.