My own personal experience of this course run by the NHS was excellent, I found that it helped me in many ways to understand and manage my condition to affect a positive change in many areas of life.
On the course talks are given from professionals in their field, ie physiotherapy, psychology, fitness instructions, diet, respiratory education and many areas to help the patient manage their condition and improve their quality of life.
Self help techniques on clearing mucus, managing breathlessness, breathing techniques, the importance of exercise and much much more.
From my own experience I would highly recommend this course to any patient with COPD / emphysema, I learnt many things and continue to apply all that I learnt on the course to my everyday life. I am able to do much much more than when I was first diagnosed.
Improvements can be noticeable on completion of the course and I found I steadily improved with continued an ongoing exercise routine.
The course I attended was 6 weeks long. 2hours a week. One hour on education, managing condition, talks by professionals and one hour education on and actual fitness training. Don't be put off by the thought of exercise, the class usually starts of with chair based exercises and as patients improve and for those who are able this progresses to standing exercises.
The fitness included in my course was things like, arm and leg raises, stretches and gentle bends, sit to stand using a chair, walking up steps or just stepping up on a step. Using weights, cycle, and resistance training, often the equipment changed from week to week, it was a very gradual and gentle routine to begin with and mostly all patients notice a marked improvement in the fitness level after the duration of the course.
Pulmonary rehabilitation course is sometimes known as Lung Education Exercise Programme.
Your GP can refer you to a pulmonary rehabilitation course.
There is more information about NHS pulmonary rehabilitation on the web which can be found by a web search.
Patient UK has a very informative page about PR
https://patient.info/doctor/Pulmonary-Rehabilitation.htm
I hope this information has been of help and I wish everyone a good experience with their pulmonary rehabilitation course.
Good wishes to all
V