Moishe Feldenkrais (a physicist) is usually credited with such method(ology).

My Feldenkrais teacher was hit by a car, a few years ago - before I met her. She'd been an athletics-obsessed person prior. I can't recall the litany of things screwed up in the crash (she was walking, not inside a car). When she could barely move anything.. and the MDs were acclimating her towards --> a veritable paraplegic life next:

She had herself carried into some F. class nearby. Went through just such exercises, a part of learning how it is that you control your muscles. Visualizing (gedanken experiment?) as if you were moving them, practicing that - enabled her to rapidly progress to being able to move them. Gradually she became able to move body parts which were simply.. not responding at all, before.

She is today lithe as a mime or an acrobat. Still has some pains associated, and probably some angles she cannot attain - but to anyone not-her: she appears as fit as any pro athlete.

Since I have an incipient spinal 'scoliosis' (medicine is constitutionally unable to call a 'bend' a bend) I have been attending for some months now. She is also gifted at 'talking' one's way into noticing -- what most of us go through a lifetime never ever paying attention to. And this method is not about "monkey see, monkey do" - you need to find out just how (and now many!) minor movements work, and notice that the entire spine/body moves in synchrony with what you think: is just an arm, or finger 'moving'.

Many folks have almost-fused sternums, pelvis-spine connections and.. most ribs - through disuse and not ever noticing. But all these need to move freely, even to walk properly! This is stuff which could be taught to children (they become savvy Fast in F. classes - not yet having learned bad adult habits) And is: in Switzerland for one! (where F. lived).

I can't say I have seen yet A Miracle, but I am seeing progress, where your usual allopath had no solutions to offer except: accept the inevitable. Mine is measurable change, if not yet complete repair - so I will persist.

It's always amusing (while remaining appalling) - the keen sense of Discovery! of the (especially US-trained) allopaths - when they happen onto various effective treatments never dreamed of in their philosophy, Horatio. Apparently neither genuine curiosity nor a particularly high intelligence is required in most med. schools here (but a good memory for Latin! and pharm-chem). And Boy do it show. Vet. schools are much *harder* to get into, a cohort discovered years ago.

(Your wife, no doubt - shall prove an average raiser! :-)


Cheers,

Ashton