Memon Medical Institute

YOGA THERAPY

FOR three years after a car crash left her with chronic pain, Deanna Adams searched high and low for relief. Mrs. Adams, 41, a stay-at-home mother in West Palm Beach, Fla., consulted a physical therapist, a chiropractor, two doctors (a pain specialist and a neurologist) and an acupuncturist — to no avail.

She also went to basic yoga, hoping asanas would ease the debilitating back pain, neck spasms and migraines that plagued her. After each class at LA Fitness, Mrs. Adams felt better for a few hours, but her symptoms inevitably returned.

It was only after her first yoga therapy session with Emily Large, who runs Living Large Therapeutics, that she realized why group yoga left her cold. “When you go to a yoga class, everybody is doing the same thing,” Mrs. Adams said. “If you have a neck or back injury, the instructor doesn’t know.”

Yoga therapy — one-on-one visits which take place in medical clinics, physical therapist offices and yoga studios — takes into account pain and injuries for a customized experience.

As her client did yoga postures she had handpicked, Mrs. Large, a yoga therapist with a physical therapy license, lightly touched her to sense where Mrs. Adams was tense or weak. Then she designed a sequence of poses to target those areas, including a lying twist with the knees bent and a repetitive variation of triangle pose. As Mrs. Adams grew stronger and more flexible doing poses at home, her routine was updated, and after three months, her pain has largely subsided.

People often turn to yoga when they are injured because they want gentle exercise that’s easy on the joints. But, most yoga teachers don’t have time to address individual problems, nor do they regularly deal with special needs.

Enter yoga therapy, an emerging field in the United States, although commonplace in India. Therapists work in small groups or privately, adapting poses for musculoskeletal problems that have been diagnosed by doctors. Other therapists help people deal with the anxiety of living with illnesses as varied as cancer and chronic fatigue.

“We recognize that not every pose is for everybody,” said Robin Rothenberg, a yoga therapist who runs the Yoga Barn studios outside of Seattle. “If you are a 20-something dancer, that is one thing and if you are a 50-year-old computer programmer, that’s a different thing.”

Yoga therapy is nowhere near as popular as one-pose-fits-all classes. Still, in the last three years, membership in the International Association of Yoga Therapists, a trade group based in Prescott, Ariz., has almost tripled to 2,060, from 760.

But experts inside and outside the industry say yoga therapy should be approached with caution. In general, a person can practice as a yoga therapist after 200 hours of yoga teacher training, which might include basic training in anatomy, breathing, meditation and giving adjustments.

“Anybody can hang their shingle and say they are a yoga therapist,” said Julie Gudmestad, a physical therapist who also practices yoga therapy in Portland, Ore. “Buyer beware. I’ve seen some strange things done in the name of yoga therapy.”

Most reputable yoga therapists have additional credentials. Some are physical therapists or nurses or have completed two years of training in Iyengar yoga, which emphasizes anatomy and kinesiology. Others have been certified as therapists by schools like Integrative Yoga Therapy or American Viniyoga Institute. The institute is run by Gary Kraftsow; applicants must have completed 500 hours of his teacher training. His course teaches the clinical applications of yoga for spine, joint and muscle problems.

This is extract from article in NY times: