Quick answer
Cardiopulmonary rehabilitation uses monitored, progressive exercise and breathing training to rebuild capacity after a cardiac event or surgery, and to manage chronic lung disease. Sessions are supervised with vital signs monitored throughout. Programmes typically run eight to twelve weeks.
After a heart attack, cardiac surgery or a COPD exacerbation, the safest way back to normal activity is supervised, graded exercise — not rest, and not guessing at home.
Who this is for
Recovery after a heart attack, angioplasty or bypass surgery; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; post-COVID breathlessness that has not settled; and patients needing chest clearance after chest surgery or a prolonged admission.
What sessions involve
Exercise is prescribed at an intensity set from your assessment and is monitored — heart rate, oxygen saturation and perceived exertion — throughout each session. Alongside it we teach breathing techniques, airway clearance where secretions are a problem, energy conservation for daily tasks, and pacing.
Safety and coordination
We work within the limits your cardiologist or pulmonologist has set, and we ask for those limits before starting rather than assuming. Sessions stop if monitored values fall outside the agreed range.
What to expect
Programmes usually run eight to twelve weeks. Most people notice they can climb stairs and walk further within the first three to four weeks. The purpose is not athletic fitness but getting daily life back without breathlessness dictating it.
Medically reviewed by Nasir Mughees, BPT, MPT, Orthopaedic Physiotherapy · Last reviewed September 2026
What it treats
