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5. Better Understanding of Your Disease
Knowledge is power, and pulmonary rehab teaches you a good deal about your COPD. Through one-on-one sessions you’ll better understand your medication treatment plan (no easy feat when you’re juggling a variety of medications), learn to use oxygen therapy properly, and develop excellent strategies to deal with specific symptoms.
The more you learn about your COPD treatment, symptoms, and warning signs, the more quickly you can stop a potential emergency before it starts. When you know how to react to various situations, you won’t need to first contact your doctor – and that can save you precious time and lots of discomfort.
Resources
NCBI (Mortality and mortality-related factors after hospitalization for acute exacerbation of COPD)WebMD (Pulmonary Rehabilitation for COPD)COPD Foundation (What is Pulmonary Rehabilitation?)Patient.info (Pulmonary Rehabilitation)
There are several ways to make it through the holidays with COPD comfortably; balancing work and rest and protecting against the season’s airway irritants.
