Dealing With Bronchitis

One of the treatment options that exist for chronic bronchitis is that of pulmonary rehabilitation.  This treatment is one that provides restorative and preventative care to individuals that are suffering.

This process of treatment is one that is designed to fit each patient’s needs and their situation.  There is no definite treatment procedure, but one that works to allow you better care over a period of time.

As your lungs become less and less capable of providing the right amount of oxygen to your body, you need an increased amount of training on how to handle and improve your ability to manage with this progression. 

During pulmonary rehabilitation, your doctor will work with you to determine your needs through assessment.  Then, you will be working on a program that provides you with several key elements.  Skill training, physical reconditioning, and psychological support are given to the patient in the necessary dose to provide you with the ability to cope with your condition.

Goals are established that will provide you and your team of doctors with the necessary establishment of improving your quality of life and your ability to improve your health.  You are not alone in this process, though.  Your family is encouraged to work right alongside you to insure that you are given the care that’s needed and so that they can give you the support you need.

What’s Included In Therapy?

The process of pulmonary rehabilitation includes the following treatments and educational tools to aid you in improving your well being.

• You are educated about your body’s make up and the lung disease that you have.  You will be educated on your stage of that disease as well.
• You will work with your doctors to understanding your medical tests; including understanding what your treatment is going to be based on those tests.
• You will learn hygiene techniques for your bronchial tubes which can aid in providing additional air flow through your air passageways.
• You will be given an exercise regimen and will learn a series of techniques.  This includes learning how to breathe all over again, endurance training, strength training and flexibility training are necessary.
• You will also learn how to conserve your energy and how this affects your daily life.
• Your medication is prescribed and you are educated on what the medication does, including over the counter medications, herbal remedies if they exist and any side effects that you can expect to face.  Understanding how vital your medication is to your life is critical to getting benefit from it.
• You will learn how to assess your own condition, too.  Since time is of the essence when you are ill, you need to learn to spot the need to seek medical attention and how to assess your daily needs.
• Environmental control is a must.  Removing any pollutants from your home that could worsen your condition must happen.  This also includes spotting instances where you are prone to infection including getting immunizations yearly.

In addition to these things, you’ll be taught a wide range of additional tools to help you to improve your day to day living.  You will learn how to manage sleep disturbances including sleep apnea and insomnia, to common conditions in lung disease.

You will learn the effect that lung disease will have on sexual intimacy.  It is vitally important that you learn to stop smoking, to improve your nutrition and to get the necessary exercise.  You need to learn how to travel with your illness, how to improve your daily life and activities so that they will be able to be done even when you are suffering from chronic bronchitis.

You will learn how to manage stress and how to improve your body’s reaction to it. 

You are given psychosocial intervention as well as support to provide yourself with the support that is needed during this illness.  Advance care planning is also discussed and planned for. 

For most patients, it is also important to have and learn how to use oxygen.  This includes different methods for oxygen supplementation as well as learning when you need it and how to use it.

These tools provide a comprehensive care package to aid you in improving your condition.

What Can Pulmonary Rehabilitation Do?

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.