HYDERABAD: People suffering from lung diseases have modest wishes of walking for 15 meters or spending around two hours in a park with their grand children. As all energies gets spent on breathing and secondary problems such as weakening of muscles does not allow a person to perform normal activities, they become depressed.
Under Pulmonary Rehabilitation programmes, patients are taught simple exercises to manage their activities, understand how to optimise the effect of medicines and improve quality of life, said Pulmonologists at a ‘Symposium on Pulmonary Rehabilitation’ organised here on Sunday. At the symposium hosted by Institutes of Pulmonology, Apollo Hospitals, young Pulmonologists and doctors from other specilisations were explained scientific basis behind the rehabilitation programme.
Consultant intensivist and Pulmonologist at Apollo Hospitals, Dr Sai Praveen Haranath said that people suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and asthma because of tobacco use or environemntal exposure. The premise on which pulmonary rehabilitation is based on is that patient is immobilized because of secondary changes, said Dr R Vijai Kumar, head of Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Institutes of Pulmonology, Apollo Hospitals.
“The patient does not want to walk because he/she becomes breathless, muscles are all wasted, become thin, he is depressed and anxious and does not eat well. These are called second changes. So the pulmonary rehabilitation is not about addressing the primary problem but it is addressing a secondary problem. We exercise the muscles so that he is able to walk. Instead of 10 metres, he will be able to walk 15 metres and he will not become breathless . The patient would not be depressed because we talk to him taking care of his depression. We cannot increase his number of years of life, but we can improve quality of life,” Dr Vijai said.