COPD Treatment

Understanding Pulmonary Rehabilitation

COPD touches every part of your life. But pulmonary rehabilitation, or rehab, can help you manage the condition so that it has less of an impact. Rehab is based on a team approach and combines exercise, emotional support and education. You and your providers work together to create a treatment plan just for you. The payoff is increased control of your symptoms and improved function. And that makes it easier to take part in daily activities and enjoy a better quality of life.

Being a team player

You are the most important person on your rehab team. The other people on your team may vary. Typically, they might include a doctor, a nurse, a respiratory therapist, an exercise specialist, a dietitian and other professionals.

Antibiotics May Help COPD

If you have certain symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), antibiotics may help. The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease has updated the COPD treatment guidelines on antibiotics. The guidelines now recommend that antibiotics be used to treat worsening COPD caused by a bacterial infection.

These are instances when antibiotics should be prescribed:

When a patient's COPD worsens and the person has these three symptoms: increased dyspnea (difficulty breathing), an increase in the amount of sputum (mucus), and an increase of infected sputum (pus). Infected pus is usually noted by a change in the color of the sputum to yellow, green, or brown.