"After a thorough search of the Internet and Google Groups I was unable
to find a single negative comment regarding the Egoscue Method."
I looked into this about two years ago. While most of the google
search results are positive, negative comments are out there and a
truly thorough search would uncover them, but there's no way it would
be worth anyone's time to do this for only $20. Because I had a
chronic injury for which I hoped the Egoscue Method might be a
solution I probably invested upwards of 40 hours looking into it. This
time was spent reading three of Egoscue's book, reading the Egoscue
web page (including sections normally requiring a paying membership),
searching various Internet forums (and posting some of my own
questions), and asking several doctors their opinions on it. After all
that, here is my assessment:
Many people report varying degrees of sucess, and in my opinion Pete
Egoscue's general approach--basically that the biggest source of
disfunction is lack of proper exercise--is right on target, in my
opinion. I think the books on the balance are well worth reading, but
here are a few things to keep in mind.
-- A search of pubmed.com or medline turns up no scientific support
worth mentioning for the Egoscue Method. (Any cites worth mentioning
would appear in this database.) It's unfortunate that so much effort
has gone into promoting the method commercially as a proprietary
method and no expense seems to have gone into even the most elementary
attempt to clincially validate it. It should come as no surprise that
the quackwatch is interested in investigating the Egoscue Method.
-- Because of the lack of scientific/clinical evidence about the
method's efficacy, most health insurance polices or HMO's will not
cover it.
-- After looking at the Egoscue web site, one of the doctor's I asked
about it was of the opinion that even if Pete Egoscue was onto a good
thing, he was grossly overstating and overselling it. As this doctor
put it, "I've learned that if I think I have all the answers, I
usually don't." (Looking at the web site, not it looks like it has
been rewritten and "toned down" a bit.)
-- I think the statistics cited by Pete Egoscue as well as all the
"web testimonials" are unintentionally skewed. As the questioner
pointed out, Egoscue's routines often take lots of time. I suspect
that of the people who try the Egoscue Method, the large majority will
drop out because they lack the time to follow the program and/or
aren't seeing the results they hope for given their time investment.
To my knowledge, Pete Egoscue hasn't given an accounting of how his
statistics were reached. But I think it's safe to say that his
percentages cover people who completed the program and don't cover
those that drop out. Because of the big time commitment, people who
aren't getting the results that they are hoping for are more likely to
drop out before completion. But, regardless, we can expect people
who drop out to blame themselves and be reluctant to vocally criticise
the program, because-who knows-maybe it would have worked for them if
they followed through. Again, these type of issues point to the need
for clinical evidence.
--the Method categorizes people, based on posture, into a few "types"
and for each "type" a cooke-cutter solution is prescribed. This
approach is dubious on several fronts.
First, there is doubt that any meaningful diagnosis can be rendered
solely from looking at body posture, and especially only looking at
pictures of body posture. For example, just from a picture it is not
possible to tell if someone has excessive lordosis (a big theme of
Pete Egoscue) or just happens to have large buttocks. (You can find
discussions of this on the Net and they apply to Egoscue even though
they don't necessarily mention Egoscue by name.) Second, the
cookie-cutter approach won't necessarily address the issues of a
particular individual. An individualized approach is more likely to be
sucessful. Third, the "diagnosis" of the Egoscue Method presupposes
that the problems are due to postural problems, muscle inbalances,
etc., when they could be caused by other conditions such as
osteoarthritis. Also, I don't remember seeing any real discussion of
myofascial trigger points in the books and from what I know now, this
is a fairly signficant omission. Fourth, some of the methods within
the Egoscue Method don't seem to be very efficient. Case in point:
Pete Egoscue will likely have you spend literally hours lying flat on
your back to stretch out your hip flexors (in part to get rid of that
excessive lordosis that may just be a genetically big butt). While
many others believe that hip flexor stretches are a good idea, it's
hard to find anyone advocating spending more then a few minutes a day
on hip flexor stretches.
Still, I recommend reading Pete Egoscue's books. I think that many
people who take the time and follow the Egoscue Method will see some
benefit, assuming they have that time available. And it's hard for me
to envision anyone hurting themselves following the method. The
biggest drawback I see is people may spend a lot of time on the
Egoscue Method at the expense of time spent on pursuing a more
individualized and efficient solution. There is simply no subsitute
for getting a thorough whole-body "hands on" evaluation by a
specialist to identify and come up with a solution to your unique
needs. Unfortunately, most specialists just won't spend the time to do
this, so you may have to spend a fair amount of time and money finding
one. |
