A point that I’ve made in each of the last few blog entries, and that I’ll make again now, is that the most important part of scoliosis treatment is posture and proprioception training.
I start the process of training posture and proprioception with Mirror Work, where my student learns to correct their posture, and – most importantly – integrate this correction into their awareness of a more symmetrical, more upright posture in their everyday life. One of the ways that manual treatment can feed into and support Mirror Work is by doing manual treatment in the Mirror Work start position. This means doing manual treatment while my client is in the seated position, so that as I work on the compression areas of their torso, they have an immediate experience of how the work is affecting them in an upright position, rather than receiving the treatment while lying down and then transitioning to be upright.
In previous blog entries I’ve described the exercise parts of my treatment plan:
Posture and proprioception training.
Stretching and mobility work.
Strengthening.
The fourth and final piece of my 4-part approach to scoliosis treatment is manual treatment. Manual treatment involves the use of my hands to loosen, lengthen and reposition muscles and fascia to help my clients be more symmetrical and upright. Manual treatment is a helpful complement to exercise work, and it is also able to effect areas that are sometimes hard to reach through exercise.
There are three main goals of manual treatment:
Align the feet and legs in relation to the pelvis and spine.
Create volume and vitality in the compression areas of the torso.
Support balance and full range of motion in the arms and shoulders.
Of these goals the most important is the second: creating volume and vitality in the compression areas of the torso. However, if disorganization in the legs and feet or in the arms and shoulders is very noticeable, I may work in one of these areas first before beginning to work in the compression areas of the torso.
I am a certified practitioner of Ida Rolf’s Method of Structural Integration and this training forms the basis of my manual treatment work. Over the past fifteen years I have adjusted my technique, so that much of what I now do with scoliosis clients, while rooted in my Structural Integration training, was developed by me through my experience of having scoliosis and working with many scoliotic clients.