Save your breath: traditional Kyrgyz dance helps ease chronic lung disease

Nurse Aidai Temiraly Kyzy does breathing exercises with female COPD patients Photograph: Danil Usmanov/The Guardian

Every day on the respiratory ward at one of Kyrgyzstan’s biggest hospitals, Aidai Temiraly Kyzy, a 24-year-old nurse, puts on the music and leads her patients in the Kara Jorgo, the national dance of the central Asian country.

This involves a range of body movements and leaves everyone smiling – but Kyzy is not doing it for fun. The session is part of a treatment programme offered to people with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – a common, preventable and treatable lung condition.