Pulmonary Rehabilitation - physiotherapy to exercise your heart and circulation
Are you breathless?
Has your walking deteriorated?
What is Pulmonary Rehabilitation and is it for you?
Pulmonary rehabilitation is an 8 week course of specific exercise and education for people with chronic lung disease who feel that they are more breathless than they used to be, or notice that they are not managing to do things they once could.
Pulmonary Rehabilitation has been described as 'the cornerstone in the comprehensive management of patients with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)'
In 2006 the American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society define Pulmonary Rehabilitation as:
"An evidence-based, multidisciplinary and comprehensive intervention for patients with chronic respiratory diseases who are symptomatic and often have decreased daily life activities. Integrated into the individualised treatment of the patient, pulmonary rehabilitation is designed to reduce symptoms, optimise functional status, increase participation, and reduce health care costs through stabilising or reversing systemic manifestations of the disease."
There has been a tremendous growth of high quality research supporting pulmonary rehabilitation for patients with breathing difficulties due to chronic lung disease, and it supports the fact that pulmonary rehabilitation reduces breathlessness, increases exercise ability, such as walking, and improves an individual’s quality of life.
The course runs for 1 hour, twice a week for 8 weeks. The exercise component includes aerobic and strength exercises suitable for each individual. These exercises have been shown to reduce symptoms and improve strength and endurance. The education element of the course is to teach you how to best manage your condition, to maximise your function and how to maximise your quality of life. The education subjects include assessing your inhaler techniques, teaching you methods to help reduce your breathlessness and chest clearance techniques for those of you who have problems with phlegm. We will also discuss ways in which to relax and to save energy so that you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.
A lot of patients with lung disease also have problems with their weight, either being under or overweight, both of which can further affect your breathing, so advice is also available to tackle that. Most importantly we teach you how to identify chest infections and what you can do to treat them. It is well established that by identifying and treating a chest infection early, it not only reduces the severity of the infection but also it can speed up recovery.
Email Amanda Thomsom for further information.