Pulmonary Rehabilitation at Community Memorial Hospital is a comprehensive approach to treating respiratory problems in which therapy, education and exercise help you achieve your breathing potential. This interdisciplinary program is designed to meet your individual needs.
Pulmonary Rehabilitation helps patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (emphysema, bronchitis), and other pulmonary conditions. The program helps patients with breathing retraining, cough management, energy conservation, medication education and stress and anxiety management.
A significant part of the program is education. To manage chronic breathing problems, you must learn to use your breathing muscles more efficiently. It is also important to learn to recognize symptoms and improve general health and conditioning.
Pulmonary Rehabilitation staff can help you develop strategies and exercises to accomplish this.
The program includes:
Community Memorial Hospital’s Pulmonary Support Group helps people with chronic pulmonary illness and their families share and cope with their experiences.
The group meets the second Wednesday of the month, September through May, 1-2:30 p.m., in the hospital’s Northwest Conference Room on the Lower Level, for an educational presentation and social gathering.
The support group is free. You do not need to pre-register.
Asthma is reversible airway obstruction, meaning that people who have asthma will change day to day and even hour to hour in how much air they can blow out due to narrowing of the airways. The other feature of asthma is hyper-responsiveness, which means that an asthmatic’s lungs are twitchy - things that normally wouldn’t cause people without asthma to cough or have chest tightness will cause the lungs to constrict in asthmatics. These individuals may be up to 100 times more sensitive to irritants in the air. Common irritants for asthmatics include smoke, pollution, dust, pet dander, pollen, etc.
People with asthma experience symptoms such as:
About five percent of the general population has asthma. It’s also the most common cause of missed school for children and missed work for adults. Asthma is more than an inconvenience -- it accounts for about 5,000 deaths a year.
Community Memorial Hospital’s Asthma Program is designed for people six years of age and older. Program staff include a registered nurse and a respiratory therapist who design and individualize a program in coordination with your doctor. This program helps you control your asthma through better understanding of:
The asthma program varies from one to five visits to individualize information for each patient. A referral from your doctor is required.
: 
