The Utilisation of the Feldenkrais Method in patients with backache without radicular irritation

I chose the topic The Utilisation of the Feldenkrais Method in patients with backache without radicular irritation for my bachelor thesis. The method bears the name of its author Moshé Feldenkrais, who started to develop his conception after his own injury during the Second World War. Feldenkrais Method of somatic education is an approach employing the process of learning by means of movement. It is based on presumption that a human being has four basic constituents: feelings, thinking, sensual perception and movement, which are present to each human action, and which interact with one another, which results in the fact that influencing of one constituent causes changes in the others. The method has two basic approaches: group lessons Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration. Backaches are now classified among so called ?civilisation diseases?, which is mostly given by today?s life style ? sedentary jobs, stress, lack of movement, which lead to numerous improper stereotypes leading later to pain occurrence. The spine and back in general, which are the most loaded parts in terms of posture maintenance against gravity are usually the first to be affected by chronic pain. Back pains are said to be the most frequent cause of inability to work. The thesis is structured in two parts. The theoretical part mainly deals with the Feldenkrais Method. At the beginning I introduce the author by his brief biography explaining the process of the conception development. Then I describe the principles and basic elements of the method like self-awareness, somatognosia, organic learning. Chapters containing indications and contraindications, possibilities and course of education in the field of Feldenkrais Method follow. The next part informs on two basic teaching methods, which are a group form ?Awareness Through Movement? and individual ?Functional Integration?, where I compare the first one with conventional exercises and the latter with classic manual techniques. In the last part dedicated to the Feldenkrais Method I am trying to outline the possibilities of applying Feldenkrais Method to chronic pain treatment. The following chapter of the theoretical part deals with the phenomenon of pain. In the last part I summarize the most frequent causes and consequences of backache and their schematic categorisation. The practical part contains the goals of the thesis, methodology description, research sample characteristic and the research results processed in the form of case studies. Quantitative research method was chosen for data collection and processing. Two patients with pains in cervical, respective lumbar spine were chosen. Anamnesis was taken from the patients and basic physiotherapeutic examination, which is recorded in the input and output kinesiological analyses, was performed. The research results aren´t so significant because of small testing group, but in my opinion the Feldenkrais Method might become a part of therapy for chronic pain treatment, as both the patients subjectively perceived improvement after the exercises, which is also obvious from objective examination recorded in the output kinesiological analysis. The fact that the research was based on just a small sample of probands however does not enable us to generalize the results. Remarkable improvement of perception and awareness of own body and work with it occurred in both the women, which was obvious on improved breath stereotype and mastering of localized breathing, which had been a big problem for both the patients before. Another improvement was in higher spine movement and particularly reduction of backache in both the patients. Improvement of psychical condition is surely another indicator of the method effectiveness