20.What Can Pulmonary Rehabilitation Do? – Bronchitis

It does take a lot of work to put together a care package like this. It does take a lot of work to make changes to your daily life.But, is it worth it?

With the help of pulmonary rehabilitation, there is hope for your condition. Depending on what stage your chronic bronchitis is at will depend on your ability to gain back any function and quality of life.

Pulmonary rehabilitation has shown to be beneficial in improving your exercise tolerance, which ultimately improves your ability to do activities that you could not do without it. Just doing simple activities around the home can be easier.

In addition, by taking advantage of health care resources that you have, you can improve your quality of life. By taking the time to educate yourself you can truly understand what you need to do and why to improve your condition.

Ultimately, improving your quality of life is what this rehabilitation program will do for you.

In some situations, pulmonary rehabilitation has been show to help improve survival in patients with chronic bronchitis and lung disease.

While curing the condition is not likely, improving how long you survive and improving your living conditions through that time period can happen with this type of rehabilitation.

Additionally, improvement can be seen in:

 Improving respiratory symptoms such as coughing and mucus production.

 Improving your ability to perform physical activities effectively.

 Increasing knowledge which ultimately leads to improved conditions and early prevention.

 Reduces the dependence you have on medical care including the hospital stays that you have.

 Increases your ability to return to work

 Lowers the number of patients that need to depend on a ventilator to breath

Remember that your condition is unique to you. That means that this help is only as effective as you make it.

If you have chronic bronchitis or emphysema, or other lung diseases such as asthma, pulmonary rehabilitation may be a treatment option for you. Although it is not something that can be beneficial to all patients, depending on their stage of illness, it does benefit many, helping many to return to a more normal lifestyle.

Talk to your doctor about pulmonary rehabilitation. Find out how effective it can be for your specific case. Your doctor will perform an assessment of your medical tests and your physical abilities to determine if it’s the right treatment for you.

Since it can be tailored to meet your needs, most patients with lung disease of some type can find benefit in pulmonary rehabilitation. If your doctor does not recommend it, find out why. If he doesn’t mention it, bring it up as a possible tool to aid you in improving your life and quality of life as well.

Communicating your needs with your doctor is a must, because he may or may not be able to provide you with this information without your questions. Even more so, you should be in control of your destiny with chronic bronchitis.