Dr. Marc Moramarco and Amy Heller OTR/L of Scoliosis 3DC (Boston area) recently taught a Schroth Best Practice® certification course for healthcare professionals. The Schroth course took place in San Francisco, California at the state-of-the-art facilities of UCSF. Schroth Best Practice® practitioners are trained to teach patients scoliosis-specific exercise, according to individual curve pattern, using current Schroth Method exercise rehabilitation techniques. Dr. Marc and Amy are both members of the Schroth Best Practice® Academy Board and are the only Certified Advanced Instructors of Schroth Best Pracitice® in the US.
It was an action-packed five days for the group of eight practitioners – six physical therapists and two chiropractors. Each practitioner attained certification to teach Schroth Best Practice®. The course participants hailed from California, Arkansas, Oregon, and Pennsylvania and are now eligible to begin working with scoliosis patients wanting to incorporate Schroth into their daily routines.
The Schroth Method is a conservative pattern-specific scoliosis rehabilitation treatment technique for adolescents and adults with scoliosis and kyphosis. The goal of the method is to help those with spinal curves learn to manage their spines, improve posture, stop progression, create improved spinal symmetry, and avoid surgery for scoliosis. The technique was originally established by Katharina Schroth, Germany, more than 100 years ago. Dr. Moramarco introduced the method in the United States in the early 2000’s. Today, he and his team treat patients from all over the globe at his Boston area practice in Woburn, Massachusetts.
The beauty of Schroth Best Practice® is that it is a simpler version of Katharina’s original Schroth Method. Schroth Best Practice® still incorporates the effective original principles of Schroth but with modifications and amendments that are far more amenable to fit into daily life. Halting or reversing scoliosis is especially important for busy adolescents who have school, sports, and other commitments but need to find a way to control, or in the case of growing adolescents, to potentially reduce scoliosis. Adults with scoliosis use Schroth Best Practice® to improve posture, stop spinal curve progression, and control or eliminate pain to avoid surgery for scoliosis.
The course participants learned several Schroth Best Practice® techniques including pattern-specific scoliosis rehabilitation (PSSR) exercises and exercises for the sagittal plane. The importance of treating that plane of scoliosis cannot be overstated when it comes to providing patients the ability to target the spine, conservatively, in 3D.
Dr. Marc and Amy are honored to be the designated Schroth Best Practice® Advanced Instructors in the United States to allow them to help spread the benefits of the Schroth Method to other practitioners beyond Massachusetts and New England to ultimately help empower even more patients than they can at Scoliosis 3DC.
All in all, it was an immensely successful course with a great group of highly competent people. We are happy to report that the Scoliosis 3DC team has already been invited back to UCSF to teach there again at some point in the future. While there are no plans as of yet, we now look forward to our next practitioner training, tentatively planned for January at our clinic near Boston.
