Yoga for Arthritis

The approach you’ll learn in this workshop was developed at a leading university by an interdisciplinary team of medical and healing professionals, including rheumatologists, psychologists, public health researchers and yoga therapists. Combining ancient yoga practices with modern medical knowledge, this program offers modifications to address the unique abilities and limitations of people with rheumatoid and/or osteoarthritis. In a seven-year randomized clinical trial at Johns Hopkins, program participation was associated with improved arthritis symptoms, disease biomarkers, physical fitness, psychological functioning, and quality of life.

Instructor

Heather Keller, RN, E-RYT

Heather has been practicing yoga since awakening to it at the age of 32 and realizing that what was "missing" in her life was herself. Yoga ignited a passion to integrate all of the wisdom of the ancient healing practices into her modern professional life as an RN. As a 1994 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, she continues her clinical work in maternal-child health. Her quest to bring eastern to western led her to be one of the few graduates of the 2010 Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program, founded by Donna Karan and led by Rodney Yee. She’s currently pioneering an integrative therapies program at St. Joseph Medical Center, teaching the practice of healing touch, and providing healing therapies to staff and patients in the hospital setting.  

Her passion for integration and "proving" the effect of yoga to help with disease led her to the work of Dr. Steffany Moonaz. Over the last seven years, Heather has continued teaching yoga for arthritis privately and for the yoga teacher intensives in the country. She’s honored to serve as a guest faculty teaching for the yoga therapy master’s program at the Maryland University of Integrative Health this fall. She currently lives in the charmed city of Baltimore with her three children. Her big mission is to educate and expose the medical community to the benefits of integrative therapies.  

Yoga as Medicine Class Schedule

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