Associations and Scientific Societies affiliated with ARIR

In its history, ARIR has established collaborative relationships with Universities, Government departments, Societies and Professionals and Patients Associations at Italian and international level in order to spread the culture of Respiratory Physiotherapy. In this page you can find the Professionals Associations who has an affiliation relation with ARIR. Within the pages of the individual associations you can find the material resulting from these collaborations.

Taking its cue from the international character of Physiotherapy and Respiratory Rehabilitation, the first official collaboration within the Association was the one with theAmerican Association for Respiratory Care (AARC).

Since the early years of the Association’s existence, many members and some members of the board of directors have been represented by physiotherapists who dealt with patients with Cystic Fibrosis. The connection between Respiratory Physiotherapy and the care needed for these patients is natural. It was therefore equally natural to establish a partnership with the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Society (SIFC) who since 2004, the year of his birth, collaborates with the ARIR to recognize the figure of the Respiratory Physiotherapist and to improve his training path.

After a few months, following many interventions by European colleagues at the ARIR events, the Association and some of its members participate in the 1st International Congress of theEuropean Respiratory Care Association (ERCA), held in Lausanne in 2004. This event began the affiliation between the two associations, united in order to bring together the respiratory physiotherapists who were then operating in Europe. From working with ERCA, the 3rd ERCA International Congress and the 1st International Congress of Respiratory Physiotherapy organized by ARIR were held in Stresa in 2009. The success of participation and consensus from the scientific world have prompted our Association to repeat the experience, laying the foundations for what has become the most important Italian event on Physiotherapy and Respiratory Rehabilitation.

Officialized the relationship with our first international partners, it was natural to cement a relationship born for many years on the Italian territory. In 2005, the affiliation agreement with theItalian Association of Hospital Pneumologists (AIPO) with whose members the ARIR had been working for some time to spread the culture of Physiotherapy and Respiratory Rehabilitation in Italy.

In 2009, ARIR joined the Italian chapter of the Global Alliance against Respiratory Disease (GARD), a national alliance that, on a voluntary basis, operates within the Ministry of Health involving key stakeholders of respiratory diseases such as scientific societies, patient associations and universities, aimed at developing and comprehensive strategy to tackle respiratory diseases. The Alliance is part of the WHO’s activities of prevention and control of chronic diseases. The vision of the alliance is that of “a world where everyone is free to breathe” with the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of chronic respiratory diseases.

In order to promote the training and recognition of the figure of the Physiotherapist Specialist in Physiotherapy and Respiratory Rehabilitation, in 2013 the partnership between ARIR and theItalian Association of Physiotherapists (A.I.FI.). Since then there have been many opportunities for discussion between the two associations at public events, such as the congresses of both, or in the joint work of documents and campaigns related to the profession.

Law No. 24 of 8 March 2017 gave the opportunity, to the associations that were eligible, to register in the list of Scientific Societies and Technical-Professional Associations. Cataloged according to the health profession represented, these bodies are a fundamental piece for the newly formed National System of Guidelines. ARIR, together with the National Association of HydrokinesiteRapists (ANIK), the Italian Society of Physiotherapy (S.I.F.) and the Italian Society of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation (S.I.Fi.R.) is part of the Italian Federation of Scientific Associations of Physiotherapy (FIASF) that, along with A.I.FI. physiotherapists within the new validation mechanism provided by the law.