10.4 -Medical Yoga for the Spine

Webinar Series Title:

Medical Therapeutic Yoga in America: Holistic Rehabilitation in Orthopaedics & Gastrointestinal Health

Abstract:

Module 10.4 is part 4 of a 12 part series on using medical therapeutic yoga in orthopaedics and promotion of systemic wellness through healthy gastrointestinal function and how it relates to joint function.

Most Americans will experience back pain at some point in their lives.  Likewise, functional gastrointestinal problems are at an all time high in the US today.  However, yoga is not typically considered as a mainstream option to address spinal mobility or functional GI dysfunction.  Further, the relationship between the two has yet to be explored in the context of rehabilitation and wellness until now. This CE will provide an evidence base for adding yoga to your clinical toolbox to affect both spine and GI populations. 

Medical therapeutic yoga is globally beneficial for lowering stress, improving function, and increasing quality of life for both the patient and practitioner.  This CE will prepare the professional to identify at risk populations, minimize risk factors in spine dysfunction, and update yogic instruction and posture prescription based on the latest in evidence based biomechanical theory.  The clinician will also be able to critically analyze the evaluative paradigm necessary to use yoga for achieving safer physiological spinal motion, improved GI function, and overall health in both medical and wellness based settings. 

The CE will also discuss spinal kinematic theory and how it changes the traditional approach to, and increases safety in, teaching yoga for spinal mobility. Finally, critical analysis of yoga postures utilizing flexion and rotation will provide practical application that equips the clinician for using yoga as medicine for the spine, GI health, and overall systemic wellness in the clinic or on the field. 

Professional Yoga Therapy has been leading the way in medical yoga since 2001 with its grassroots programs in post-graduate evidence-based medical therapeutic yoga.  PYT standardizes methodology for evaluation and management in prevention and pathophysiology through education in evidence based CAM modalities, specifically medical therapeutic yoga.

Presenter:

Ginger Garner, MPT, ATC

Clinical Objectives:

Upon completion of this webinar, you will help patients reduce, manage, and prevent future persistent spine and related abdominal pain by doing the following:

1. Describe how the simultaneous application of yoga, Ayurveda, and spinal kinematics can influence and improve overall systemic health and wellbeing.
2. Evaluate how spinal osteokinematics and arthrokinematics can effectively operationalize the holistic conceptual model of evaluation and management in the spine.
3. Using a standardized evidence-based methodology for alignment and instruction, apply 12 yogic postures and analyze their symbiotic effect on spinal functional mobility, GI motility, and overall health.
4. Discuss how the laws of spinal arthrokinematic biomechanical theory have refined prescriptive yoga posture alignment in the 21^st century through their influence on the application of compression and torque in the spine.

Clinical Categories: 

• Injury/Illness Prevention and Wellness

• Clinical Evaluation and Diagnosis

• Treatment and Rehabilitation   

• Organizational and Professional Health and Well‐being