Ail's Velotherapy for Patients with Blood Tumors

Venice – Set sail on a sailboat to find yourself, and face the sea, open, uncertain and dangerous, in the same way you face illness, like a new Ulysses heading to their Ithaca.

Thus, starting from Venice, “Sognando Itaca” sets sail, a rehabilitative sailing therapy project for improving the quality of life of patients with blood cancer, promoted by Ail on the occasion of the National Day for the fight against leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, with a series of stops in various Italian cities: the first, today in the Veneto capital, with which the boat 'Desirè of Dreamers' took hematological patients along the Certosa, the Arsenale and the San Marco basin, accompanied by a multidisciplinary team.

A day that had as protagonists the patients, who thus experienced the unique emotion of spending a day in the open sea.

The initiative, sponsored by the Navy, Sport and Health, the Italian Sailing Federation and the Naval League, was presented this morning in the setting of the Compagnia della vela dell'Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

“Sognando Itaca” was born in 2006 on Lake Garda, and is called this because, like Ulysses, oncohematological patients find themselves facing an open, unknown and dangerous sea. During the journey, however, they discover new territories, relationships, solidarity and resources.

Sailing, in fact, explains Ail, for the sensations it offers and for the unique and suggestive conditions in which it is practiced, has a therapeutic function and contributes to strengthening the relationship between patients, doctors, psychologists and nutritionists on board. Since 2009, the project has reached the sea with a sailing boat branded Ail, with professional skippers, patients in rehabilitation, doctors, nurses and psychologists, and along the Italian coasts it has stopped in cities where there was a Hematology department linked to the association.

In each port of call, the sections involved gave life to Itaca Day, during which patients from local Hematology Centers, accompanied by volunteers, doctors, nurses, had the opportunity to embark to live an experience on board. Thus they discovered sailing as a therapy for psychological rehabilitation and improvement of the quality of life.

Over the years, Ail has paid more and more attention to all those aspects that can influence the disease and its rehabilitation process: psychological, social and lifestyle, to the point of focusing on the combination of environment and health, keeping the Itaca and sailing project at the center. Thus, the provincial Ail sections have individually carried out, with the local nautical clubs, sailing therapy initiatives.

Up to this year's initiative, which will be carried out collectively: so 20 Ail sections will have, in the summer period, on the lakes or on the seas, their 'Itaca day', in which the patients of the hematology centers will have the opportunity to live an experience of sharing outside the ordinary space and time of everyday life.

It starts from Venice, then Itaca day will also land in Ancona, Macerata, Barletta-Andria-Trani, Brescia, Brindisi, Lecce, Livorno, Naples, Novara, Palermo, Trapani, Ravenna, Reggio Calabria, Rimini, Rovigo, Salerno, Taranto, Teramo, Trento, Trieste and Verona.

This morning's press conference on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice was attended by Alessandro Simon and Giovanni Alliata di Montereale, president and honorary president of Ail Venezia, Giuseppe Toro, national president of Ail, pediatrician and oncologist Chiara Messina, psychologist Elvira Tulimieri, Aurelio Angelini, environmental sociologist and director of the scientific magazine Culture della Sostenibilità, and Marco Semprebon of Unicredit.

And even the president of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, who was unable to attend, sent a message of "esteem to the healthcare personnel, the numerous volunteers and all those who, in various capacities but with the same vocation, actively contribute to the fight against these diseases", thanking Ail "for having chosen Venice as the inaugural location of this solidarity journey".