Medical Therapeutic Yoga: An Evidence-Based Model for Safe, Trauma-Informed Use of Yoga in Healthcare

Level – All levels

Contact Hours – 16

Price – $525 (earlybird) $575

Prerequisites – None

Recommended Text  – Medical Therapeutic Yoga

Course Description

Noncommunicable chronic disease (NCD) & pain characterize the majority of our American patient population today. Patients are hurting because they often cannot afford healthcare or gain sustainable access to services like physical therapy and occupational therapy. They are also hurting because of lifestyle-driven diseases which therapists can directly impact and help treat and prevent.

Our approach to rehabilitation must shift if we want to be able to effectively and efficiently tackle the epidemic pain and NCD’s that directly impact our patient outcomes, especially in the musculoskeletal and neurological fields. Meanwhile it is getting increasingly difficult for therapists to be able to provide services in a timely manner, or to have access to patients, thanks to dwindling reimbursements.

Yoga is a modality that has accumulated a significant evidence-base to support its efficacy, particularly with pain and stress management techniques like mindfulness, meditation and some breathwork. The postures and breathwork, however, require significant evolution if they are to be applicable and safe in a physical therapy setting, and this is why the Medical Therapeutic Yoga method was developed.

Medical Therapeutic Yoga is a method for using yoga in healthcare. It is able to address multiple issues at once, chiefly:

• Making yoga postures, breathwork, and meditation techniques safe for all populations through evolution via the evidence-base.
• Making yoga trauma-informed for populations who have experienced trauma via the healthcare system, via yoga itself (injuries and abuse in yoga are well documented), or via life experiences.
• Making yoga a preventive, as well as therapeutic intervention you can use and be reimbursed for in the insurance model.
• Making yoga a way to implement lifestyle changes and influence behavioral change in patients to improve patient adherence and follow-through.
• Making yoga a way to increase types of services offered in rehab departments and outpatient clinics in order to increase reach into the community and improve hospital and clinic-based outcomes, including patient satisfaction.
• Making yoga a Lifestyle Medicine intervention that is measurable and repeatable in research and clinical practice.
• Making yoga a documentable, reimbursable modality that is culturally sensitive, patient-centered, and patient-led.
• Making yoga a feasible self-care modality for healthcare providers in order to decrease compassion fatigue and burnout.
• Moving from a sick-care model to a true healthcare model in the United States, using yoga as a model for a complete, systems-based healthcare delivery.
• Distinguishing yoga instruction and yoga therapy from yoga delivered in healthcare.
• Establishing professional boundaries for use of yoga in healthcare by licensed medical professionals, which do not currently exist in unlicensed yoga teaching and unlicensed yoga therapy.
• Helping medical professionals understand the history of abuse in yoga culture and how to safely refer to patients to yoga that will keep them safe and not expose them to this abuse.
• Use yoga as a diagnostic and prescriptive tool for lifestyle change, not just as a fitness modality.

Course Outline (16 CE)

• Meditation
• Guidelines to Integrative Practice
• Evaluative Framework: The Vector Analysis
• Orofacial & Yogic Locks Lab
• Functional Movement Assessment Lab
• MTY Classes
• Psychology of Yoga
• Influencing Change Readiness
• Case Studies
• Reimbursement & Professional Issues

Course Objectives

1. Verbalize the history of yoga & healthcare to understand its evolution into clinical practice.
2. List guidelines for integrative practice.
3. Discuss methodology for using yoga in healthcare.
4. Identify posture and breath techniques that can be used to affect kinesthetic impairment and pain management.
5. Practice unique diaphragmatic breathing patterns to improve safety and efficacy of yoga prescription.
6. Discuss case studies in a lab format.
7. Demonstrate applicability of MTY precepts in your healthcare practice.
8. Apply yogic and behavioral change theory in your daily life and practice.

Course Schedule (16 CE) – This course can be taught in a 2 or 3 day configuration. Below is a sample 3 day configuration.

Friday April 24

2:30 – Registration
3:00 – Welcome, Introduction, Pre-Test
3:30 – Guidelines to Practice – 10 Precepts of MTY
4:30 – Break
4:45 – The Biopsychosocial Evaluative Framework – Lifestyle Medicine & Health Promotion in PT Practice; The Vector Analysis
5:30 – Laying the Groundwork: Orofacial & Locks Lab
6:45 – Break
7:00 – Lab Continued
8 PM – Adjourn

Saturday

8:00 – Q&A
8:30 – Orofacial & Locks Review
9:30 – Break
10:00 – Functional Movement Assessment (FMA), Part 1 – Respiratory & Restorative Lab
11:30 – Putting It All Together – Review
12:30 – Lunch
1:30 – FMA – Respiratory & Movement Lab, Part 2
3:00 – Break
3:15 – Putting It All Together – Class
4:45 – Q&A
5:30 – Closure

Sunday

8:00 – FMA Class
9:30 – Break
9:45 – Psychological & Trauma-Informed PT & the Science of Behavior Change
11:00 – Case Studies – Putting it All Together, MTY Method in Practice
11:45 – Q&A
12:15 – Closure

Special Considerations

As this continuing education course includes lab work, all course attendees should come prepared to participate as both clinician and patient.

Equipment Needs

Basic yoga equipment (mat, 2 Mexican blankets, 1-2 yoga blocks, strap)