It is a non-profit association which was set up in San Piero in Bagno on 22 July 2002 with the specific aim of "……providing psychological, social and humanitarian support to those who are affected by this chronic disease, and suffer from severe disorders, handicaps, hardships and exclusion. This support intends to improve the quality of life of patients and their families in terms of well-being, awareness and dignity…".

The association follows the principle of solidarity, equality and tolerance which it recognises as the basis of everyone's life and it works with the aim to learn to respect, help and live with the hardships and discomfort of chronically ill people. Another purpose of the association is to reduce the gap in the relations between the ill and the healthy and between healthcarers and patients in order to exchange experiences to live in a more respectful and respectable society.

A.I.P.A.F.  was set up as a common project of mutual exchange, solidarity and voluntary work where individuals take care of, and listen to each other and share the experiences of this "chronic disease". When the disease becomes chronic, curing only the symptoms is not sufficient to meet the patients' needs because the disease with which one has to live becomes a sign of the interpenetration between life and death; thus, medicine ought to be flanked by a psychological "analysis" that tries to grasp the meaning of the disease in the life of the affected person.

The association is also a meeting place for families, specialists, operators who – being directly involved and in close contact with the disease - lead their lives carrying the burden of sufferance and – if they do not have someone who listens to them - risk to emotionally surrender to the chronic, terminal nature of the disease.

A.I.P.A.F. is made up of psychotherapists, psychologists, researchers, doctors and domestic assistants who have been working in the field for many years and have developed a long experience of voluntary work and social solidarity towards affected patients, thus consolidating a strong competence in the field. It has been acknowledged that exchanging and understanding the most painful experiences and feelings - rather than denying them - can help find vitality and interest in life again.