Betsy Shandalov – Yoga for Therapeutic Rehabilitation: Learning New Tools & Expanding Your Practice

Outline

Why Yoga as a Therapeutic Modality?

• What is yoga?
• Understand Integrative Medicine
• Review body systems and how they work together
• Understand types of yoga and how yoga therapy aids body systems
• Neuroplasticity of the brain and eye, and brain exercises for adults and kids
• The Nervous System and pain control
• How yoga comforts pain clients

Anatomy of Therapeutic Yoga: Cardiopulmonary System

• Review pulmonary anatomy (case study)
• Proper breathing and its benefits
• Types of pranayama
• Breathing exercises
• Therapeutic breathing and your adults and kids
• When to use pranayama for adults and kids
• Define breathing and positioning
  • upright
  • side-lying in bed
  • wheelchair
  • standing
• Case study with group practice of pranayama, seated and standing pose demo

Anatomy of Therapeutic Yoga: Musculoskeletal System

• Posture and nerve and muscle communication
• Anatomy of the shoulder and hip joints
• Opening the joint door: muscle and body balance
• Practical applications for diagnoses
• Secondary disabilities and their consequences, dissecting the mechanics of movement
  • spasticity
  • hypotonicity
  • muscle imbalance
• Yoga as medicine for adults and kids from dependent clients to active clients

Asana Application and Treatment

• Asana poses
• The science of restorative vs. active poses and the body’s response
• Decide between restorative vs. active poses for treatment
• Case studies in a variety of settings from hospitals to schools
• Perform active poses

Poses: Props and Our Patients

• Perform restorative poses
• How do resting poses help clients with disabilities? (client with cancer case study)
• The importance of elongation and extension of the body and how props assist your clients
• Pictures of supported and active yoga poses for clients with a variety of disabilities
• Props for therapeutic use with spasticity, abnormal tone, weakness, or imbalance
• How do you decide if your client needs resting or active poses and how much?
• Is the client prone, supine, or in a wheelchair?

Pose Lab and Case Study Presentations

• Practice poses and experience the therapeutic benefits of a restorative pose vs. an active pose
• Using props through visuals and poses
• Examine 5 different case studies and determine what poses are best for your clients
• Therapeutic benefits of each pose for each diagnosis and their contraindications
• What props to use for each pose and why

Yoga and Expanding Client Treatment

• In your setting: acute care, inpatient, outpatient, home health, and hospice
• Throughout the lifespan
• Giving the client a gift in the community
• Recent studies in medicine and yoga
• Yoga and its future in health care
• Yoga and the Integrative Medicine team

Faculty

Occupational Therapist

YogaOT

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Betsy Shandalov, OTR /L, C-IAYT, AWC, has worked as a clinician, educator and supervisor in rehabilitation and community re-entry. She now treats adults and children in a variety of healthcare and educational settings, using Ayurveda, Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness as her main therapeutic modalities. Her extensive knowledge of disease and disability in a variety of settings combines with her complementary Integrative medicine treatment to provide a new level of understanding of how the brain and the immune system work together for natural and therapeutic healing.

She continues to lecture around the country to encourage and educate other healthcare professionals to learn more about Integrative Medicine and its benefits. Her hope is that if we can teach clients to empower themselves with diet modifications, movement and breath then they can change their lifestyle to prevent injury, heal an existing injury and help with pain management and trauma throughout the lifespan.