Jen Tomkinson, Acting Team Manager COPD and Telehealth Services, offers some tips on improving respiratory health.
1. Stop smoking if you haven’t already.
- Talk to a doctor or nurse about the options available to help you stop smoking.
- Tell friends and family you are trying to quit and ask them to support you.
2. Attend the surgery for a check up of your lungs at least once a year.
- Have your flu jab annually.
- Ensure you know how to take your breathing medications – ask a clinician to check with you that you are using it correctly.
- Discuss how to stay healthy with your clinicians.
- Consider setting a goal that you wish to achieve with the clinician around your lung health or function.
3. Attend a pulmonary rehabilitation programme
When you have a lung problem, particularly a long-term one, you can find it difficult to move around or do your normal daily activities without getting breathless. You may also find that you get tired very easily and often feel exhausted. Pulmonary rehabilitation is designed to help you cope with your breathlessness and feel stronger and fitter at the same time.
Getting out of breath can be very frightening, which makes the breathlessness worse. In trying to avoid this, people often reduce the amount of activity they do. However, over time you will become unfit, tired and more breathless. Pulmonary rehabilitation can help by breaking that vicious cycle. You can ask your doctor to refer you, or refer yourself.
4. Talk to your doctor about the hospital at home schemes
We aim to bring care into the community and provide a safe alternative to staying in hospital. We visit patients in their own home during the length of their COPD exacerbation (flare-up). We can assess you in your home and help to develop a plan to assist you to stay at home safely. Your GP or nurse can refer you to the service seven days a week.
We advocate a self-management approach to help patients better understand their care. Through this ethos we encourage patients to take control in managing their condition.
5. Consider using Telehealth
Telehealth is a remote monitoring device available to people with COPD or heart failure. It supports people to understand their symptoms and increases people's confidence to be more self sufficient. The Telehealth service is monitored by a persons named clinician. It is not an emergency service.
If you would like to discuss any of these services / options; speak to your GP practice or look at www.briscomhealth.org.uk/ourservices/COPD
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