Respiratory Problems and Physiotherapy
When you have respiratory problems, your first stop is the doctor. Once the doctor has determined the cause of your respiratory problems, he or she may refer you to a physiotherapist. At the time, you may not have given it a second thought, but now, you’re wondering what a physiotherapist can do to relieve your problem.
As you will see, there is much that a trained physiotherapist at Bentall Physiotherapy can do to help you breathe easier and reduce the resulting strain on your body.
Clearing Your Lungs
Many respiratory ailments are characterised by sputum or phlegm in the lungs. Clearing away the congestion helps you to breathe easier, and it could be as simple as adopting certain postures to help the fluid drain out. Patting the back in a certain way can also help you to clear fluid. Your physiotherapist will demonstrate show this should be done.
Showing You How to Breathe Especially in a Crisis
It’s interesting to note that the majority of people don’t breathe properly to begin with. If you add a respiratory ailment to the equation, poor breathing habits add up to greater strain on the body and greater respiratory distress.
When your respiratory ailment involves “attacks” in which you struggle to breathe, knowing what to do in an emergency, and how to get through the attack could save you from a medical emergency. Physiotherapists will also look at ways in which you can help your body so that your respiratory distress incidents become less frequent and less intense.
Breathing Exercises to Help You
It’s important to keep the oxygen levels in your blood high enough to aid all your body’s natural functions. Breathing exercises help with that and help you to change inadequate breathing habits that you may have formed over a lifetime. Because of your respiratory ailment, getting you to breathe as efficiently as possible will help you a great deal.
Physical Activity
People with respiratory problems easily get out of breath. As a result, they tend to avoid exertion. But while you don’t want to overstrain your respiratory capacity, challenging it a little helps you to maintain and even increase lung capacity.
A sedentary lifestyle, on the other hand, could aggravate your problem and reduce lung capacity as time goes on. While we wouldn’t recommend overly strenuous workouts, we will work with you to keep you as active as possible, and we will look at ways to improve lung capacity without placing undue strain on your body.
Helping You to Help Your Body Help Itself
Physiotherapy for respiratory ailments can’t offer you healing or relief on a platter. It takes active involvement on your part. Our goal is to train you to make the most of your body’s natural potential for taking care of itself. Physiotherapy could be seen as “natural medicine.” However, it isn’t based on up-in-the-clouds theories. Instead, it is fully supported by science.
After all, your body does know how to bring itself into balance. But sometimes you need a little training to help you to help your body look after itself!
