Welcome

Pierre Duroux, Michel de Boucaud, Marie-Dominique Leborgne

Living with Asthma Publication date : November 1, 2002

Psychological factors have been curiously neglected in the treatment of asthma, although they are known to play a key role in the illness. In addition, the psychological consequences of living with this difficult, chronic and often handicapping disease, with its stressful crises, are rarely taken into account. Yet it has become abundantly clear that asthma patients need to be given psychological assistance.

The goal of this book is threefold:
1. To answer questions asked by asthmatics, as well as to share with them the knowledge and experience acquired by a French pilot association of asthma patients, whose work is based on discussion groups.
2. To improve the treatment patients receive, and to make it easier for them to manage their own lives, by enabling them to talk about their hitherto unexpressed fears and worries.
3. Through a series of personal accounts by other asthmatics, to enable patients to identify their own cases with those of others, and thus to help them find a medical and psychological explanation for their shared experiences.

Pierre Duroux heads the pneumology service at Hôpital Antoine Béclère. He is the president of France’s national commission on respiratory ailments and of the Société française de pneumologie.
Marie-Dominique Leborgne is the president of the French association Asthme 37 and a member of France’s National Asthma Association.