Getting the rehabilitation message across: emerging barriers and positive health benefits.

T he world’s press frequently contains stories of failed rehabilitation attempts [1] by media personalities, and popular songs on this topic can galvanize strong views [2]. Such events highlight the popularisation of a faulty view that rehabilitation offers only a marginal opportunity for benefit and as such should be avoided at all costs. It is unclear if such scepticism, reinforced by the media, impacts upon those with long-term illness and whether it limits, for example, what pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation programmes have to offer. In a recent local Primary Care Trust chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) service evaluation report, patients voiced their concern over the term ‘‘rehab’’ [3] as they believe that there is stigma attached to the term. This previously unrecognised concern may form a new barrier to pulmonary rehabilitation programmes. Clearly, any such concern needs to be addressed as these are interventions of great benefit to our patients [4, 5]. However as recruitment and retention of patients into rehabilitation programmes is not easy, as a specialty we need to reflect upon the terminologies we use and how best we ‘‘sell’’ or market these interventions to our patients.