Currently, curing RA is not yet possible. The objective of antirheumatic therapy is therefore to slow down the disease progression and improve the patient's quality of life, whereby medicinal therapy plays a decisive role apart from physical, ergotherapeutic, orthopedic and psychological treatment.
 
Standard therapies
 
The currently available medicinal treatment of RA pursues two objectives:

• On the one hand the application of pain- and inflammation-relieving medicines aims at slowing down the errant reactions of the immune system and the resulting inflammation
   
  
• while on the other hand it is aimed at influencing the disease progression with substances that confer long-term suppressive activity on inflammatory reactions. Thus any impending joint destruction will be slowed down or even stopped.