What is Pulmonary Rehabilitation?

Pulmonary rehabilitation, or PR, is a collection of therapies that can be customized to improve your ability to function within the disease process, at the highest possible level and increase your overall wellbeing. It’s not meant to replace your medical treatment, but instead intended to be used in conjunction with that care. Think of it like a training regimen, one honed specifically to your experience and health goals. The way your body responds to COPD, for example, can vary widely based on a lot of factors, so the blend of therapies will differ as well. You’ll work with a team of health care providers to find ways to lessen your symptoms, increase your ability to exercise, and make it easier for you to do daily activities.

Pulmonary Therapy Includes:

• Education About Your Disease and How to Manage It: This includes learning how to avoid situations that make your symptoms worse, how to avoid infections, and how/when to take your medications.
• Pulmonary Therapy: You’ll build an exercise plan with your team of health providers to improve your endurance and strength. Often a combination of exercises for both the legs and the arms, you may have to start off slowly, but don’t worry, you’ll get stronger.
• Nutritional Counseling: Being either overweight or underweight can affect your breathing. A nutritious eating plan can help you work towards a healthier weight.
• Energy Saving Techniques: Learn easier ways to do daily tasks. Some movements make it harder to breathe, since they may use up energy and make you tighten certain key muscles.
• Breathing Strategies: Learn techniques to improve your breathing. This is especially helpful for people who suffer from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. These techniques can increase your oxygen levels, decrease how often you take breaths, and keep your airways open longer.
• Psychological Counseling: The fact of the matter is that if you have a chronic lung disease, you are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, or other emotional problems. Quality programs, like ours here at Sierra Care, include counseling and education therapy. This is especially valuable in treating pulmonary hypertension, where managing the emotional response directly influences physiological recovery. The less stressed you are, the better you breathe.

Our Pulmonary Rehab Process

We’re big believers in looking at rehabilitation from a systematic viewpoint. For example, understanding, that pulmonary edema is often caused by congestive heart disease means we can’t only look at the lungs, but how the respiratory and circulatory systems work together. If the causes vary, the treatment does, too.

Another advantage we offer is that our facility is specifically designed to offer the utmost in respiratory care and support. That doesn’t just mean that our doctors and nurses are the best at what we do but we understand that, oxygen therapy is paramount to successful treatment, and each one of Sierra Care’s rooms are designed with that in mind.

Our expertise in respiratory support extends beyond rehabilitation, to include ventilator support, managing respiratory failure, and tracheostomy care. In this way, we’re able to care for patients with neuromuscular and central nervous system diseases, spinal cord and other medically complex conditions, like Multiple Sclerosis, heart attack, or any cerebral vascular accident.

We know that your experience with pulmonary disease can vary day by day, and the hope is that while you’re here, we’re able to not only mitigate your symptoms but over time improve them. Our facilities are staffed with doctors and nurses that specialize in offering subacute care across the spectrum of chronic ailments. That means we work to understand the challenges you face from a physiological perspective as well how they are affecting you emotionally. You are going to bring your own experience to the treatment, and we work to integrate that.