[Inertia in clinical practice: causes, consequences, solutions].

Therapeutic inertia is one of the components of clinical inertia. It mainly concerns the management of chronic diseases. It may be defined as the attitude of health care providers who do not initiate or intensify therapy appropriately despite recognition of the problem. Multiple causes may be identified, related to the physician but also to the patient and to the health care system. The consequences may be dramatic, both for the patient, in terms of quality of life and/or life expectancy, and for the society, because of the huge cost resulting from complications due to therapeutic inertia. Thus, various solutions should be proposed to help solving this important public health problem, focusing the actions on the physician, the patient and/or the health care system.