Pulmonary Rehabilitation

A lot goes into healthy breathing. Your lung health is affected not only by the mechanics of how you breathe, but also how you live, think, eat and move. Pulmonary rehabilitation specialists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, have created a therapy program designed to help you breathe easier and improve your quality of life.

What is pulmonary rehabilitation?

Pulmonary rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary program that helps improve the well-being of people who have lung disease. It is recommended for all patients with lung disease who experience shortness of breath despite the use of medication.

Your plan will be designed just for you by a team of medical specialists. Depending on your own lung condition and goals, your rehabilitation plan may include:

• Exercise training specifically created for those with breathing issues to build your endurance, flexibility and strength.
• Nutritional counseling to help you learn how diet can boost your immunity, reduce inflammation and impact respiratory health.
• Education about your lung condition and how to manage it. Examples of education topics include medication, self-care, adaptive equipment, energy conservation strategies, pulmonary testing, breathing retraining and the importance of exercise.
• Energy-conserving techniques to minimize breathlessness
• Medication management tips, including proper use of inhalers and nebulizers, to help you feel more in control.
• Breathing strategies to improve your symptoms.
• Behavioral and psychological counseling to build your resiliency, improve your outlook and help you minimize stress. Group support meetings every other month help participants with anxiety and depression, which are common with chronic lung disease.
• Smoking cessation to support healthier habits and lung tissue repair

Together, these therapies are designed to improve your physical and mental well-being and promote long-term changes in your daily habits to make breathing and living more enjoyable.

Who benefits from pulmonary rehabilitation services?

Whether you have lung disease or have developed breathing issues as part of another health condition, we can help. Some of the chronic lung conditions we treat include:

• COPD
• Emphysema
• Chronic bronchitis
• Asthma
• Cystic fibrosis
• Pulmonary hypertension
• Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
• Sarcoidosis
• Interstitial lung disease
• Diaphragm dysfunction
• Pneumonectomy, lobectomy or other lung surgery
• Lung cancer

We also work with participants in our lung transplant program and people who have undergone lung volume reduction surgery.

Benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation at Ohio State

We understand that when you’re having trouble breathing, not much else matters. When you partner with Ohio State’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program, you’ll have access to a team of experts who understand every aspect of your condition, as well as the side effects that you deal with every day.

Philip Diaz, MD, founded Ohio State’s pulmonary rehabilitation program in the 1990s and remains its medical director at Martha Morehouse Outpatient Care. The program he created was groundbreaking and one of the first of its kind in the area. Today, Ohio State’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program is nationally ranked and certified by the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, so you can feel confident in your decision to use our services.

Your care team will use the latest science-backed therapies, and because we’re part of The The Ohio State Lung Center, the only comprehensive lung and pulmonary center in the Columbus area, we can easily refer you to other experts for any related health concerns, such as allergies or difficulty sleeping. You also gain access to the latest groundbreaking pulmonary treatments through Ohio State’s active clinical trial program.

As your pulmonary therapy team, our goal is to design a rehabilitation plan that improves your daily life, keeps you out of the hospital, deepens your understanding of your condition, reduces your shortness of breath and increases your independence.

And to make it easier to fit rehabilitation into your schedule, we offer therapy at two convenient locations, one on the east side of Columbus, the other on the west.

Your Ohio State pulmonary rehab team

Each person on your rehabilitation team will work with other specialists in our program to make sure your care plan works for your goals or can be adjusted when you have any changes in health or new breathing concerns.