Pre/Post-Operative Pilates Training for Total Lumbar Fusion Graft Spine Surgery

Author Deborah Spungen does Pilates exercise with Lynda Lippin to strengthen herself before and after total lumbar fusion graft surgery.

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, BWI (PRWEB) December 2, 2006 -- When Philadelphia's Main Line resident, author, and educator Deborah Spungen, MSS, MLSP, CTS arrived at Lynda Lippin's Pilates studio 5 years ago, she was experiencing debilitating, almost excruciating back pain which interfered with her work. As founder of the Anti-Violence Project of Philadelphia, Spungen trains and lectures to social workers, police officers, and families of murder victims.

In her sixties Spungen was diagnosed with a severe Lumbar Scoliosis and Stenosis with herniations at every Lumbar disk. She became a client of Lippin's in 1997, six months prior to a scheduled spinal reconstruction surgery: anterior/posterior total lumbar fusion graft. Despite many movement limitations, Spungen always left the studio feeling better and standing taller.

She returned to the studio 3 months after surgery. Lippin recalls, "With the help of her Physical Therapist we worked to regain specific muscle strength and joint mobility." Today Spungen feels and looks great. She walks, bicycles, swims, and is more active than most of her contemporaries. Spungen credits Lippin's Pilates lessons for her continued vitality. "My surgery was successful, but without Lynda's assistance and Pilates, I know that I would not have recuperated so quickly, nor would I have attained the high level of functioning that I enjoy today."

Lippin recently published an article, "Pre/Post-Operative Pilates Training for Total Lumbar Fusion Graft Surgery," about her work with Spungen. It appeared in the Fall 2002 TheMethod Pilates Forum, published for members of the PhysicalMind Institute.

# # #