Pulmonary Rehabilitation: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Edited by R. Garrod
Published by WHURR Pub, London
: 206页。价格:£20.25(特价的人embers), €29.13. ISBN 1-86-156-421-X
Up until the 1980s, pulmonary rehabilitation was considered to be, at best, slightly more than psychotherapy or, at worst, alternative or complementary medicine. At that time, it was almost a punishment to be chosen to deal with this area by the head of your department. Nevertheless, a few years later, as in all good novels, the ugly duck became a beautiful swan and the frog became a prince. Aprince with his fairy. One such “pulmonary rehabilitation fairy” is Rachel Garrod, who works with one of the most prestigious teams in pulmonology. Rachel is a rare example of the concept that, whatever your role, medical doctor or physiotherapist, if you are passionate about a topic (as she confesses in the preface of the book), no goal will be precluded.
When I was asked by theEuropean Respiratory Journalto review this book, my first feeling was “Oh my God, not another book on pulmonary rehabilitation” (especially as I had just finished another one). However, I tried to fulfil my commitment and found that I actually enjoyed it.
This small comprehensive book covers the advancement of pulmonary rehabilitation and lets us look to the future in a light of modernity; it is nothing to do with alternative medicine. Every statement in the book is supported, or tries to be, by evidence-based medicine. In actual fact, there is a range of material to work with. If you search for “pulmonary rehabilitation” in titles using Medline, you will find 108 references in the period 1966–1981 (4.4·yr-1) and 413 in 1982-2004 (18.7·yr-1). This shows that there is a growing interest in the field of pulmonary rehabilitation and this book helps to satisfy it.
A series of well-known and esteemed international authors contributed to this book and approached the tasks an operator in the field usually faces: the selection of patients, exercise prescription and training, physiological evaluation, single components of pulmonary rehabilitation programmes, cost-effectiveness, and future perspectives. Each issue is dealt with by authors who have actually worked in that specific field and not by those who have only read the papers.
If I could find one topic that was lacking, I would say it was the physiotherapeutic approach in the intensive care unit, a boundary that is crossed more and more often in the practical management of patients with respiratory failure.
In conclusion, there is something to learn from reading this book. I would recommend it to those who want be introduced to pulmonary rehabilitation.
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