[The physician-pharmacist team in the education of patients concerning inhalant therapy]

The value of educational measures in consideration of the asthmatic patient appeared at first twenty years ago to the eyes of clinical physicians, generalists or specialists. Round about the year 76 the first associations for asthmatic patients were born, under pressure from pneumologists, with the aim of clarifying their illness to asthmatics, to counsel them and especially to enable them to associate their symptoms with their treatment, to assure them of a ready availability of materials more or less onerous to test, aerosolizers, nebulizers, ionizers of the environment, peak flow meters, inhalation chambers, acaricides.... Twenty years after these pioneers of this education of the patient to these responsibilities, the associations devoted to asthma as well as schools of asthma have recently been instigated in order to complete the venture on the ground, often with only feeble means. It is hardly necessary to make an illusion: asthmatic patients, children or adults within these associations are always the same: it is those who are prepared to stir themselves to take part in meetings. There remains the great majority of asthmatics who necessarily need a particular treatment that is adapted to their personal case: it is the duo of physician-pharmacist which is and which constitutes always the best point of impact to devote the time necessary at the best appropriate moment. Such is the aim of this presentation which should not be considered as a return to the past, but an advance towards the individualized formulation of patients by benefitting from the former experiences of corporative formations.