Popularity of alternative medicine on the rise
Rolfing® structural integration has gained acceptance in diverse communities. The athletic, medical, corporate and artistic worlds have all embraced Rolfing as an effective treatment modality. For example, many professional and Olympic athletes have found that Rolfing enhances performance and reduces recovery time for sport related injuries.
Elvis Stojko, “98 Olympic Silver Medal figure skater says, “Rolfing helped me to find my center of balance for competition.” Sharon Sander, ranked No.2 on the U.S. Pentathlon team, says, “I recommend Rolfing for any athlete who has ever had trouble with injuries or doesn”t feel like they are reaching their potential.”
1998 U.S. Paralympic Gold Medal Skier, Sarah Will, a member of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team is a paraplegic athlete that credits her five gold metals to Rolfing. Will’s says that “Rolfing gives you a competitive edge as an athlete.”
Rolfing is gaining credence in the scientific, corporate and creative communities. Newsweek and the Wall St. Journal report that insurance coverage for Rolfing in the US is now available.
Employees are aided in the workplace with Rolfing structural integration. The Associated Press reported that the world”s largest custom hearing-aid manufacturer, Starkey Laboratories, Inc., in Minnesota, saved over $1 million in workers compensation costs for repetitive stress injuries with the aid of Rolfing structural integration. Starkey now has the lowest modification factor of any manufacturer in the U.S. and its insurance premium expense has reduced.
An example in the artistic sphere -Good Morning America, People magazine, and the New York Times reported in 1997 that Rolfing has enabled Leon Fleisher, a virtuoso concert pianist to make a comeback after a 30 year hiatus that resulted from a repetitive stress injury.
Olympic MD, Dr. Karlis Ullis, at the Sports Medicine and Anti-Aging Medical Group in Santa Monica, Ca. says, “Athletes always need help with chronic injuries, muscular strains and overuse. The Olympic athletes wouldn’t have as many injuries if they had appropriate soft tissue therapy,” says Dr. Ullis. “Rolfing is valuable for athletes in high level competition to address the build up of scar tissue and disarrangement of myofascial tissue that occurs from training, competition and injury.”
Dr. Ronald Tarrel, D.O., a neurologist, at the Noran Neurological Clinic in Minneapolis, says, “I refer my patients to Certified Advanced Rolfer, Wayne Henningsgaard and have had an 80-85% success rate. I’m sold on Rolfing because I get to do all the sports I want to even though I don’t have a perfect back. Rolfing does not correct the inherent changes in my back but it allows me to continue to do rigorous activities and makes me more aware of my body and helps with the pain, discomfort and stiffness. Rolfing gives me pain relief and keeps me symmetric so I can count on my body more.”
Bob Tewksbury, pitcher for the Minnesota Twins says, “I have received many benefits from Rolfing. In 1991, my massage therapist recommended it as a way to get a deeper level of work. Although the benefits of muscle work come and go depending on when and how regularly I get Rolfing work, I have noticed long lasting benefits with regard to my breathing, my posture and my body awareness. I have used Rolfing mainly in two areas, for my lower and upper back to help with flexibility and stiffness and to enhance my performance. I plan to use it again.”
“My wife recommended (Rolfing) highly”, songwriter Willie Nelson reports, “…The first of ten sessions fixed (my back pain),” reported the New York Times, on Feb. 23, 1995.
Rolfing is an established leader in the field of integrated medicine and somatics education. Research has proven that the US public is spending $14 billion in the alternative medicine market. Insurance companies, hospitals and medical schools are taking notice and preparing to change the way they do business. Demand for the services of health practitioners like Rolfers is growing as evidenced by the Nov. “1998 JAMA estimate of $21.2 billion being spent for alternative medicine in 1997,” says Certified Advanced Rolfer, Dr. Bret Nye. “Integrative health care, is a new trend, that combines Western and complementary medicines to offer the best technological advances in health care. Health insurance companies are increasingly becoming interested in therapies like Rolfing not only as potential cost effective alternatives or complements to traditional modalities, but as opportunities to provide coverage for services that will distinguish them in an increasingly competitive market place of providers.”
The Rolf Institute logo depicts an extraordinary story about a small boy”s body before and after Rolfing. It tells the story of a real child, four year old Tim Barrett, whose mother made a life changing decision about the future of his health. Barrett was diagnosed with Leggs-Perthes disease in 1959. Tim”s mother was advised by MDs to put him into a cast for five years. It was predicted Tim would be in a wheelchair by the age of 20. Dr. Ida Rolf believed she could help Tim without having him put into a cast. She worked with him for several months and Tim grew up without any handicaps. Now a healthy, 42 year old surfer Barrett lives with his family in Hawaii.
The US Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy published a Chronic Lower Back Pain case study by Certified Advanced Rolfers, John Cottingham and Jeffrey Maitland in September 1997. The report says that effective, sustained pain relief from chronic low back problems can be provided with integrative alternative treatment protocols that go beyond the conventional corrective techniques of physical therapy. The new case study states that there is a growing interest in non-conventional holistic techniques of soft tissue manipulation (Rolfing) and movement awareness methods for the treatment of chronic low back dysfunction.
“Billions of dollars in wages are lost yearly due to lower back pain. Research says one out of every seven people suffer from this difficulty,” says Jim Asher, an international expert on the Rolfing approach to chronic back pain, who is one of four advanced Rolfing instructors in the world. He says, “Rolfing structural integration examines the whole body, not just the area in pain. When the neck or back compresses from stress, injury or disease, it rotates and can cause discomfort. A Rolfer observes where the body is foreshortened and lengthens the fascia tissue to realign the body and help relieve the pain.”
