Maggie McKay (Host): What if you had difficulty breathing? It's a scary prospect, but one that can be treated. Today, Juanita Trine, Pulmonary Rehab Coordinator, will discuss the Breathing Easy Program, who can benefit from it, their mission, and share some success stories.

Welcome to Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare. I'm Maggie McKay. It's great to have you here, Juanita.

Juanita Trine: Thanks, Maggie. It's great to be here.

Host: To start off, can you please provide an overview of what the Breathing Easy Program at Community Memorial Healthcare is and its mission?

Juanita Trine: It is actually a big time commitment. It's a six-week program that people would come to twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. So what ,we're looking to do in those two hours is to split that time in half. Half of it goes to education, where we'll teach you things that you need to know in order to live better and manage a chronic breathing condition better. The other half is devoted to exercise, where we'll take people at whatever level they're at, struggling with exercise, or maybe not so much struggling, but still having difficulty with it. And we'll put what we're teaching you into practice with us there to monitor and to coach. It's amazing what great progress can be made, at least starting down the road toward living better.

Host: What are the top two primary goals of the Breathing Easy Program, and how are these achieved during the six-week program?

Juanita Trine: We want to improve quality of life and to help decrease shortness of breath, those I would say would be the big two. Staying healthy, returning to exercise, that kind of thing, just whatever we can do to get people back to the things that are important to them.

Host: And what are some challenges faced by people with chronic respiratory conditions? How does the program address these challenges?

Juanita Trine: Well, some of the challenges would be just really having difficulty breathing when doing something that's more exertional. So, that could be walking upstairs. It could be walking your dog, going to the mailbox. For some folks, it's making the bed. So, just tasks that are more exertional, that are to kick up the difficulty level as far as breathing goes. And that's huge. That really is often the reason that sends people to the doctor's office because they're noticing, "Wow, I never used to have this much difficulty with this task before."

We're addressing those challenges by teaching patients breathing techniques to help, different coping techniques, things like maybe slowing down just a little bit. It's surprising what a difference that can make. There's also the controlled breathing techniques that we teach here in the class that helps people to use it as a tool when they need it. So, if they're doing a task that is more exertional and does affect their breathing, they're going to be able to use this tool, these breathing techniques to help them do this with less shortness of breath.

Host: And Juanita, how does the program collaborate with referring physicians?

Juanita Trine: Well, we definitely work with the doctor's offices, in terms of receiving their referrals. They'll send them straight to us. We will communicate with them in regards to any paperwork or authorizations that might be needed. We let them know of how the patient's doing in class. If there's something that changes, we'll send them a note. And then, at the end, they will receive a discharge summary with full details of the results of questionnaires and exercise that was done, that will give them a really good picture of what went on with their patient during pulmonary rehab. Dr. Brugman, our Medical Director, has been out talking with our local physicians about outpatient respiratory services, which includes pulmonary rehab and the PFT lab as well so that our physicians are aware that we're here and that we do have these great services to offer.

Host: And can you share some success stories or testimonials from patients who have completed the program?

Juanita Trine: Oh, this is one of my favorite topics. That's the thing I love about this job is being able to see patients improve as we go and to hear them telling me, "I was able to start going back to using my weights at home, and I could never do that before. It's been a really long time," or they'll tell me, "I went walking and I was actually able to do it and come home and not be exhausted." I've heard patients tell me just learning that these things that I'm experiencing are common and that other people also experience them. They didn't know anyone with a chronic lung disease and felt very alone. And it was really just a wonderful thing to see both the understanding and the relief, as well as just hearing people telling us that they're improving and that they're able to do things that they had difficulty with before. That's just the best.

Host: That's got to be really rewarding. What criteria determines if someone is a suitable candidate for pulmonary rehabilitation?

Juanita Trine: Generally, you want to have someone who's experiencing difficulty in some part of their daily life. As I said, whether that be walking the dog, getting the mail, going up and down stairs. But they need to have a problem that we can help with, and that's definitely part of it. There are some qualifications that Medicare uses for patients who have a COPD diagnosis. That is determined by your lung tests. Our doctors who refer know those. So, that generally is a pretty easy hurdle to get past because they'll generally not send a referral for someone who doesn't meet the qualifications. But it's really those two.

Host: Can you talk about the importance of accreditation from the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation for the Breathing Easy Program?

Juanita Trine: It means to us that we are providing a quality service for our community, which is huge. By doing certification, we are adhering to the best practices that's nationwide. We're comparing our outcomes data nationwide, not just in Ventura or California. But to all the pulmonary rehab programs that participate in the certification process all around the country. We have to meet certain quality standards in order to be accepted for certification. And I'm just really proud that we have been able to certify and recertify several times over in order to go that extra step to have that quality product that we want to present to our community and have us as a resource.

Host: And that's got to be reassuring to the patients as well to know that you're next level. How can people interested in participating in the program get more information or enroll?

Juanita Trine: Well, the hospital has a website that we can certainly have people check out more information if you want to kind of just explore on your own or the hospital main number is 805-948-5011 and just ask for pulmonary rehab and they'll connect you over to my office and I can chat with anybody who wants to ask questions or clarify anything, anything I can do to help.

Host: Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. This has been so informative. We really appreciate your time.

Juanita Trine: Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on.

Host: Again, that's Juanita Trine. To learn more, please visit mycmh.org/programs and search pulmonary rehab. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening. This is Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare.