Today, 21 April, is National Respiratory Rehabilitation Day. The date was implemented in 2016, on the initiative of the Portuguese Lung Foundation and signed by 12 other entities (medical societies and associations of health professionals and respiratory patients).
The aim of this initiative is to raise awareness among health policy-makers, health funders, health professionals, respiratory patients and their relatives and society in general that Respiratory Rehabilitation (RR) is an intervention with proven benefits for health in its physical, psychological and social dimensions, being the most cost-effective intervention in the treatment of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Despite the proven benefits and cost reduction, the accessibility and referral to RR, incomprehensibly, remains extremely low, estimating that only around 2-3% of patients who need it, have access. The Portuguese Society of Physiotherapists appeals for an increase in accessibility to RR, particularly in the community context, and one of the priorities of the NHS should be to increase the number of specialised human resources in Primary Health Care, namely the number of physiotherapists, which is clearly insufficient.
Respiratory physiotherapy and the professional who carries it out, the physiotherapist, are fundamental elements that contribute to the improvement of the health condition of the respiratory patient (acute or chronic), whether integrated in multi-interdisciplinary RR teams or in a more direct practice context not framed within the concept of Respiratory Rehabilitation.
Physiotherapists integrated in the RR teams have an important role in the specific assessment to determine individual rehabilitation needs, in the exercise training component (prescription, implementation and supervision), in education, in health promoting behavioural changes (e.g. regular physical activity), among others (e.g. secretion removal techniques, inspiratory muscle training, respiratory control techniques and dyspnoea relief).
The Portuguese Order of Physiotherapists also underlines the enormous contribution that physiotherapists, at a national and international level, have given to the increase of knowledge, evidence and implementation of Respiratory Rehabilitation, including new models of practice (telerestherapy, low cost home and web-based).
