The aim of pulmonary rehabilitation is to provide people with chronic respiratory diseases with gentle exercise, guidance, and education. Creating exercise plans that are tailored to the individual to improve their condition physically and psychologically.
Pulmonary rehabilitation is hosted in groups where you can meet others with the same or similar conditions providing peer support throughout six weeks, two sessions of two hours per week.
Benefits of Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Improve quality of life
Reduce likelihood of exacerbations
Improve mental wellbeing
Improve levels of fatigue
Ability to reach goals
Meet people with similar condition
Speak to:
GP or Practice Nurse
Respiratory Consultant
Respiratory Physio
Respiratory Nurse
Other health professionals for more information
You can email boh-tr.respiratory.nurses@nhs.net for more information.
COPD
Medications
Benefits of exercise and sputum clearance
Energy conservation and anxiety management
Diet
Get Active
Bolton Respiratory Support Group
The following criteria should be met for patients to be eligible for referral to PR:
Diagnosed respiratory condition (confirmed by spirometry), this may include COPD, Bronchiectasis, Interstitial Lung Disease (excluding asthma).
The patient experiences breathlessness in their day to day life that is attributable mainly to the underlying respiratory condition.
The patient is optimally managed medically.
Motivated to attend PR.
No cardiac events in the past 3 months.
Any known cardiac condition (e.g. angina, hypertension) must be well controlled and stable
Aged 18+
Registered with a Bolton GP
This list relates to patient with various medical conditions where it would aggravate their present condition and possibly make their condition worse. It would therefore not be safe or advisable for them to attempt such a programme. These would include:
The presence of unstable cardiac disease – unstable angina
Not motivated to attend
Acute left ventricular failure (LVF).
Uncontrolled hypertension
Uncontrolled cardiac arrhythmias
Uncontrolled diabetes
Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) greater than 5.5cm
Significant Aortic Stenosis on ECHO
Any medical problem which severely restricts exercise or compliance with the programme (e.g. dementia)
Out of area patients
Significant falls risk, meaning unsafe to operate in a group environment.
Addendum BTS PR guidelines state re AAA that an AAA less than 5.5cm with controlled blood pressure should not be excluded from PR programmes. However, A AAA greater than 5.5cm and deemed not fit for surgery could be included in mild-moderate aerobic exercise but should avoid all resistance training. Due to the difficulty in ensuring this is adhered to a triple A greater than 5.5cm will be part of our exclusion criteria.