For five days (July 12-16, 2017) at the Antharesworld Adventure Park on Lake Candia, 20 families from Italy and abroad (France, Ireland, Canada, South Africa) participated, free of charge, in the International Lymphoedema Children Camp, a play-educational camp dedicated to children and adolescents with Primary Lymphoedema.
The aim was to help children and adolescents with primary lymphoedema, a chronic disabling disease, to manage their pathology in everyday life and alleviate their psychological suffering by sharing with other peers suffering from the same disease.
As Professor Dario Roccatello (director of CMID) explained when talking about the initiative
“The purpose of this play-educational camp is to encourage the aggregation of families, to promote self-care, to take care of themselves in an autonomous way, as an integration of forms of assistance, with methods that can avoid the negative evolution of the disease. For this reason, there are workshops with tutors and health workers to explain how to behave and how to protect their health.
In the program, in order to promote growth and confrontation between patients and operators, there were laboratories of lymphatic drainage-autodrainage, bandaging-autobendage, physical exercise, sports activities (adventure park, swimming pool, canoeing), animation, focus groups (Italian, English, French) and animation.
The camp was organized down to the smallest detail, with a high level of professionalism and total availability, which made it possible for the program to be fully implemented and for the participants to communicate despite the language difference. Moreover, the sharing between children and adolescents, who were absolutely cooperative, attentive and polite, their families and volunteers was the true heart of the camp.
As a representative of ITA.L.F. present at the camp, I must thank prof. Christine Moffatt and prof. ssa Isabelle Querè (International Lymphoedema Framework) for their organizational and economic commitment and for the study started in this context on the quality of life of children and adolescents with lymphoedema, the physiotherapists Elodie Stasi and Roberto Bartoletti for their professionalism and the challenging organization and the whole professional and helpful team of volunteers (Sabina Borracino, Cinzia Vaisitti, Emanuela Bovio, Lorena Acquadro, Angela Grassi Pandolfini, Sandrine Mestre Godin, Fabienne Mourgues, Hèlène Pourquier Chu, Christine Haussenac, Aimee Aubeeluck, Sara Rowan, Rebecca Gaskin, Chantal Lapointe, Meadbh Mcsweeney).
Thanks for the great support to “Lymphido”, a voluntary association for patients with primary lymphedema, founded by a group of families and patients with the aim of creating a network of help, disseminate information on care, present in the regional and national territory, and encourage the sharing of personal experiences.
Thanks to the sponsors for their economic contribution.
This year’s international event, the third in Italy, has been realized thanks to the close organizational and scientific collaboration between CMID (Centre for Research on Immunopathology and Documentation of Rare Diseases), International Lymphoedema Framework, Partenariat Française du Lymphoedeme, Italian Lymphoedema Framework, Ireland Lymphoedema Framework, Canadian Lymphoedema Framework.
I recommend that you don’t miss the next camp….
Marina Cestari
