Steps for Recovery, a Postural Restoration Certified Center and home for this past weekend’s Postural Restoration course, has offered its patients the Postural Restoration model of care for many years. Several of their clinicians, Ashley Arensdorf, PT, Lauren Cochran, OT, and Katie Stephens, PT, were in attendance to sharpen their PRI skills. In addition, nearly a third of participants were newcomers to the science of human movement. They were treated to the collective wisdom of three PRC-credentialed clinicians, who elevated the course for all: Craig Depperschmidt, PT, Lisa Mangino, PT, and Sangini Rane, PT.
Postural Respiration, the flagship course of the Institute, weaves concepts from our other primary courses, Myokinematic and Pelvis Restoration, and serves as a precursor to many other PRI courses: Cervical Revolution, Human Evolution, Cranial Resolution, Voice Box Resonation, and Forward Locomotor Movement.
Our patients/clients often are clueless about where our diaphragm is and how it moves and functions and how our rib cages become stiff and patterned. Furthermore, they often function in a state of hyperinflation, with poor neuro-sensory awareness that doesn’t allow them to get out of this state. Our thorax, after all, houses so much of our physiology and, when stiff and patterned, influences both movement and psycho-sensory processing. Want to help your patient/client with more efficient movement? Resolve headaches, shoulder, neck, and back pain and the multitude of extremity “-itis’s”? Hasten recovery from surgical procedures? Reduce anxiety, gut issues, and shortness of breath? Do you strive to elevate your practice through improved understanding of how and why our asymmetrical diaphragm becomes patterned in its position and movement? And how and why this pattern influences, for better or worse, the way we move our bodies, when upright, against gravity? Postural Restoration addresses these challenges, with multiple evidence-based research and real-life patient photos and videos and lots of hands-on lab sessions to guide the attendee through assessment and treatment.
A huge “thank you” goes out to our lab models, who gamely served as patient avatars to allow us to understand how to assess pelvis and thorax position and pathology, and how to treat what we see: Jason Adams, PT, Jason Creek, PT, Alexis Johnson, CPT, Mike Mentz, PT, River Patterson, ASCM, CPT, Kally Saffer, PT, Marcie Schwartz, PT, Lauren Shelton, PT, and James Werling, PT. Ashley, Lauren, and Katie: I speak for the class when I say we appreciated your wonderful hospitality this weekend. Thank you for inviting us in and providing a comfortable atmosphere and healthy snacks! Thank you to Katie’s Renaissance-man hubby, Josh Olinek, PT (fellow PRC class of 2011), who treated Lauren Cochran, Lisa, Craig, and I to a delicious home-cooked dinner Saturday evening!
Lastly, it was a pleasure presenting this course with fellow faculty Craig Depperschmidt, who had the class smiling with his “one-potato, two-potato…” and “pouty 5 year-old” analogy, among others. It was a delight for me to see you in action!
