On 6 May 2022, the Italian patient association RLS Italia was officially founded. In order to raise awareness of RLS, Italian RLS sufferers decided to transform their Facebook group, which was founded in 2009 and has around 2200 members, into a patient association that will actively work to spread knowledge about the Restless Legs Syndrome.
RLS Italia has also sent a petition to the Chamber of Representatives calling for the disease in its most severe forms to be recognised as a disability and for funds to be made available for research into a specific treatment.
RLS Italia organises meetings with physicians specialised in sleep disorders and intends to collaborate with national sleep medicine centres in the future.
RLS Italia released the following statement:
On May 6, 2022, the RLS-ITALIA APS Association was established during an information conference on OSAS and RLS pathologies, from childhood to adulthood to provide citizens, parents and teachers with correct information on the diseases, diagnostics and therapies available today.
This event organized with the Italian Association of Patients with Sleep Apnea-APS, had as speakers Professor Carolina Lombardi (Associate Professor, Head of Sleep Disorder Center, Ist. Auxologico Italiano, Milano Bicocca University) and Professor Luana Nosetti (Associate Professor, Head of Sleep Disorder Center for Pediatrics and Neonatal medicine Hospital Delponte in Varese).
After 13 years of informative work on social networks, setting up a dedicated association was the most logical and concrete step to be able to continue to provide patients with RLS and citizenship, all the information necessary to understand the causes of this pathology, receive advice on all the diagnostics and therapies available and receive psychological support to better deal with the daily living with such a disabling disease as RLS.
As required by our Statute several events are planned at local and national level, to continue in this informative path, with the help of the Sleep Medicine specialists that we will meet from time to time. The only problem we have is to be able to finance everything since we do not receive any kind of financial aid from the Government or from Health Ministry of Health.
We are proud to be able to collaborate with your company, especially for everything related to the study and research for RLS.