Balcerska Kamila, Bielejewska Marta, Gąsior Paulina, Wrzesiński Bartłomiej. Physiotherapy in ankylosing spondylitis. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2018;8(9):1576-1583 eISNN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1438093 http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/6094 https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/879772 The journal has had 7 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education parametric evaluation. Part b item 1223 (26/01/2017). 1223 Journal of Education, Health and Sport eissn 2391-8306 7 © The Authors 2018; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author (s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial license Share alike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Received: 02.08.2018. Revised: 18.08.2018. Accepted: 15.09.2018. Physiotherapy in ankylosing spondylitis Kamila Balcerska, Marta Bielejewska1, Paulina Gąsior1, Bartłomiej Wrzesiński2 1Department and Clinic of Geriatrics, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, Poland 2Scientific Circle at the Department of Ergonomics and Physiology of Physical Effort, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, Poland kamila.balcerska95@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0002-5219-720X martabielejewska1995@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0002-3692-4315 paulina_gasior@wp.pl ORCID:0000-0001-7176-0080 b.wrzesinski@icloud.com ORCID: 0000-0002-4731-5371 Introduction Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic and progressive systemic disease characterized by the occurrence of inflammation and later ossification in the sacroiliac joints, spine joints, peripheral joints and tendons. It causes pain, swelling, limitation of mobility and partial or complete stiffness of the spine joints. AS is the second most common inflammatory disease of the joints right after rheumatoid arthritis. In most patients, the first symptoms appear between 15 and 40 years of life. In 90% of patients, the presence of HLA-B27 antigen is found. However, not everyone with this antigen will be affected by AS. This disease is 2-3 times more likely to affect men than women. [1]