Pulmonary Rehabilitation: The Respiratory Therapist’s Contribution to Recovery

Abstract

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) refers to individualized treatment interventions designed to optimize patients’ physical and social performance and autonomy, enhancing figures such as exercise tolerance, dyspnea, muscle function, fatigue, and health-related quality of life (Vaishali et al., 2019). PR has gained recognition as an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach, playing a key role in the management of chronic respiratory conditions and contributing to the reduction of healthcare resource consumption and hospital admissions (Sebio-García, 2020). Many phases of the PR programme benefit from the respiratory therapist’s (RT) expertise. As vital rehabilitation staff members directly involved in patient care, RTs continue to occupy a lead role in executing the interventions (Doyle et al., 2017).