Pulmonary Rehabilitation Service

What is Pulmonary Rehabilitation?

When you develop a lung condition most people find that it can get more difficult to do the normal day-to-day activities without getting breathless.

Getting out of breath can be very frightening and can make you quite anxious which makes your breathlessness worse.

You may find that you start to avoid doing activities which make you breathless and over time this can cause you to become less fit, more tired and more breathless.

Pulmonary Rehabilitation can help to break this vicious cycle.

The main aim of Pulmonary Rehabilitation is to help you cope with your breathlessness,  helping you to feel fitter and stronger.

How can it help me?

• Increase my exercise capacity.
• Strengthen my muscles.
• Help me to manage my breathing better.
• Educate me about my lung condition.
• Reduce my risk of flare-ups.
• Increase my confidence.
• Help me to maintain a healthy weight.

Accessing the service

You can be referred to Pulmonary Rehabilitation by your GP, practice nurse, consultant, respiratory nurse or physiotherapist.

What will I have to do?

You will be invited to attend an initial assessment where you will get to meet the team. We will find out about you, your lung condition and how it affects you.

We will ask you to complete some questionnaires (we can help you with these if you would like this) and then ask you to do a simple walking test so that we can see what you can manage.

This will enable us to set the right exercises for you when you start the course.

You are very welcome to bring a family member or friend with you to your appointment.

What happens next?

You will then be asked to attend twice a week for six weeks, for two hours at a time.

In each group we aim, to have ten to twelve people who all have lung conditions and suffer from similar symptoms.

During each session participants will do about 45 minutes of supervised exercise, have light refreshments and then attend an education sessions.

The education topics range from talking about ways to control your breathing, how to manage a flare-up of your lung condition and a visit from the dietician.

We aim to create a very informal and relaxed environment for you to exercise and learn together.

At the end of the course we hope that you will continue to exercise regularly to maintain the benefits you have gained.

Looking after your lungs

We know that people can get quite anxious about going to a gym and so we have made a film to show you what it is really like.  We hope you find this helpful.