Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - like asthma or chronic bronchitis - often need specialized assistance to manage their condition and increase their quality of life.

Blue Ridge HealthCare's Pulmonary Rehabilitation assists primary-care physicians in providing care to pulmonary patients, reducing respiratory symptoms, relieving anxiety and depression, reducing hospitalizations, as well as increasing activity and tolerance for exercise.

Pulmonary Rehabilitation Services at Blue Ridge Healthcare include:

Multi-disciplinary Approach
The pulmonary rehabilitation team includes nurses, nutritionists and exercise physiologists, providing patients with education, breathing training, emotional support and graded exercise conditioning.  

Outpatient Rehabilitation

Program sessions, which meet for an hour three times a week for 12 weeks, include educational topics, breathing retraining techniques, warm-up and cool-down, stretching exercises and graded exercise conditioning. Each patient is prescribed an exercise program, consults with a registered dietitian and is monitored for oxygen saturation, heart rate and blood pressure, before, during and following activity. Patients may also be monitored by an electrocardiogram during exercise if necessary. Enrollment is by physician referral.

An ongoing maintenance program meets three times a week for one hour. Monitored by the pulmonary rehabilitation staff, patients independently pursue a lifetime commitment to exercise and lifestyle modification.  

Contact
For more information on Blue Ridge HealthCare's Pulmonary Rehabilitation Services, please call (828) 580-6563 or (828) 879-7528.