Integrative medicine and palliative care specialists recommend therapeutic yoga for children with life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses as a way to help improve well-being and symptoms.
Riley at IU Health offers a series of select yoga postures (asanas) that are carefully organized to provide physical therapeutic benefit, stress reduction, an increased sense of well-being and symptom management. Yoga is excellent training for children and adolescents, both as a therapeutic form of exercise and as a tool for breathing, focus, mindfulness and stress relief.
Certified yoga therapists at Riley at IU Health lead yoga sessions designed to meet your child’s personal needs and physical abilities. The length of each session depends on the individual patient.
What to Expect
What to Expect
Therapeutic yoga sessions vary depending on the specific needs of each patient.
Your child’s yoga session may include:
- Breathing exercises
- Meditation instruction
- Relaxation techniques
- Self-care techniques
- Strengthening
- Stretching
Yoga can be done at the bedside (inpatient or outpatient), in a chair or on a yoga mat. Your child’s yoga instructor will provide a yoga mat, if needed. Your child may wear any comfortable clothing.
Key Points to Remember
Key Points to Remember
- Therapeutic yoga can improve well-being and symptoms in children with life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses.
- Therapeutic yoga has many benefits, including stress reduction and symptom management.
- A certified yoga therapist leads all yoga sessions at Riley at IU Health.
- Yoga can be done almost anywhere—at the bedside or on a yoga mat.