Your LIBERTY
If you are a LIBERTY participant, you can record your journey digitally and access a wealth of resources and documents specifically chosen to support you.
The programme
Difficult asthma is asthma that is not controlled despite high dose medications. Patients with asthma which is difficult to treat are often also live with two or more other health conditions. We call this ‘multimorbidity’, and it increases the severity and frequency of asthma attacks.
Your doctor has told you that you are living with multimorbidity including difficult asthma, we would like to help you improve your fitness and wellbeing. This will reduce the burden of these conditions and help you to live better with difficult asthma.
Our intervention is a 6 month (24 week) supervised multimodal health improvement programme combining:
- exercise training
- behavioural change support
- breathing retraining
- dietary self-management support
- emotional self-management support
There is a follow-up questionnaire at 9 months and a final face-to-face assessment at 12 months.
The programme will run alongside your treatment.
LIBERTY is delivered by health guides (trained exercise professionals). They have done additional training for this programme, learning how to support people to change their behaviour. They will enable you to look after your own physical and emotional wellbeing well after you have completed the programme.
The sessions consist of an exercise programme, tailored to your individual needs and abilities:
- breathing pattern guidance to regulate breathing pattern during exercise
- supporting you to change your diet or maintain healthy eating
- helping you gain confidence exercising on your own
- finding your own ways of keeping physically active in the long run
- looking after your emotional health and wellbeing
- additional resources to support you
You will be asked to undergo some additional exercise-based tests, activity monitoring and an assessment of your nutritional wellbeing. You will need to complete some questionnaires before, after and during the intervention. The questionnaires can be completed either online or on paper.
There are three face-to-face study visits and two virtual visits at Southampton General Hospital.
Assessments
The assessments are intended to record how you change over the course of the LIBERTY programe. At each assessment you will:
- record your diet and food habits through the Nutritics app
- record your height and weight
- lung function tests – spirometry and FeNO
- asthma symptom and quality of life questionnaires
- emotional and psychological health questionnaires
- exercise and activity questionnaires
We can reimburse you for travel and parking costs for these visits.
Documents
Interactive booklet
Our interactive booklet is your companion on your LIBERTY journey. It gives you space to record your progress and many helpful resources.
Activity diary
For ease of access, we offer the activity diary as a separate download.