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According to the WHO, Therapeutic Patient Education (TPE) enables people with chronic diseases to manage their illness and yields benefits in both health and financial terms. Therefor we made a liaison with a platform for out-hospital patient education called "Actifclub" (AC). There all activities are organized to increase the quality of life of different chronic patients. It also allows integration of the disease and the treatment in everyday life. We work together with them for some years already. Our common goal is the development of a "Culture of TPE" for "caregivers" and "cared for". This summer we organized a midweek vacation in a bison farm in the Belgian Ardennes. We had a lot of response from different chronic patients and from our kidney patients. But even as we try to keep prizes as low as possible (166 $ all in from Monday to Friday) some of our patients were not able to spare that kind of money. Less money is mostly linked with less possibility on education concerning the illness and that gives consequently more medical problems and more comorbidities. Then Greater Charlotte Chapter NC202 offered us 500$ to help overcome the financial barrier for some patients. Educators and nurses volunteered and paid the expenses themselves. All free time at the farm was used to open informal discussions about treatments, medication, diet, compliance etc... Most common were language and cultural barriers but as medical restrictions were mostly the same, questions and solutions were freely passed and guided by the educators or accompanying nurses. At the farm we cooked with them their meals and physical exercise was promoted. This did open interesting views for some patients. Conclusions: Nonprofit organization with volunteers not always financially strong enough to coop all patients' costs. Big thanks to ANNA Greater Charlotte Chapter NC202 "Informal discussions" do mostly the trick to "educate" Language and cultural barriers not as insurmountable as thought Improvement of educational knowledge concerning diet and medication compliance by the patients [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the WHO, Therapeutic Patient Education (TPE) enables people with chronic diseases to manage their illness and yields benefits in both health and financial terms. Many health care providers, however, lack the skills to provide their patients such an education. Therefore we made a liaison with a platform for out-hospital patient education called "Actifclub" (AC). There all activities are organized to increase the quality of life of different chronic patients. It also allows integration of the disease and the treatment in everyday life. We work together with them on different levels: - The patient and/or his close - The group of AC members and their relatives - All other partners (associations; medical teams etc.) Our common goal is the development of a "Culture of TPE" for "caregivers" and "cared for". But what do we do in practice to get our patients in the system and convince them to join and to educate themselves? Firstly our nurses where initiated in the basic program by the educators of AC. They showed us how they work with the different chronic patients. Secondly we looked for some volunteers to work directly in between the educators and the chronic kidney patients. Then we created two events to increase informal communication between all participants. A one day visit of the Louvre museum in Lens, France and a midweek vacation in a bison farm in the Belgian Ardennes. For the first visit we got 20 of our patients joining in and for the second 5 others. All free time was used to open informal discussions about treatments, medication, diet, compliance etc. Most common were language and cultural barriers but as medical restrictions were mostly the same, questions and solutions were freely passed and guided by the educators or nurses. At the midweek we cooked with them their meals and physical exercise was promoted. This did open interesting views for some patients. Conclusions: "Informal discussions" do the trick to "educate" Language and cultural barriers not as insurmountable as thought Improvement of educational knowledge concerning diet and medication compliance by the patients [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]