STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION CASE REPORT AWARDS

• Practitioner’s initial assessment, notes on progress, last noted outcome, summary comments including what they learned, and any suggestions for further research.
• Information about the client’s age, gender, occupation, diet, exercise, activities, presenting complaint, any major trauma or life stress, medical history, and any medical diagnosis. Did they receive other therapeutic treatment during the period covered by the case report?
• The number and spacing of structural integration sessions; any supplemental therapeutic modalities used.
• Any relevant background literature about the type of complaint or medical condition at issue.  Bibliographic information on a few of the most relevant references is a plus.
• Any quantified measures of health status, fitness or change in medical diagnosis.  To be meaningful the measure or assessment should be recorded prior to treatment or at the first meeting, and then following last dated treatment and/or at post treatment follow up. If improvement in a medically diagnosed condition was a goal, any medical records documenting change from pre- to post-treatment will be especially valuable.
• Client’s description of initial complaints and goals for treatment.  Their own descriptions of major changes positive or negative, and their last reported outcome.

Case studies for the 2022-3 award cycle may be submitted between May 1, 2023 and October 31, 2023. To be considered, full submissions must be sent to info@rolfresearchfoundation.org by midnight Pacific Daylight Time October 31, 2023.

1. A cover page including the case study title (to include the words “case report”), practitioner name, email address, mailing address, telephone number, and signature of the author(s), and 2 to 5 key words that identify the areas covered.
2. The report should include:

• Title (To include the words “Case Report,” with a maximum 99 characters including spaces)
• Abstract (Maximum 300 words). The abstract is a summary of the case report with a sentence or two for an introduction of the topic, background information, description of the client, condition and beginning measures, the intervention or treatment plan, and the outcomes.
  • Introduction – what new knowledge does the case report
  • Deidentified client description (demographics, medical history, relevant findings). See note below regarding client confidentiality.
  • Measures used
  • Treatment approach and application, practitioner descriptors
  • Main outcomes
  • Conclusion—”take away” lessons
• Introduction, including:
  • Rationale and background information for why the client or condition was chosen to be studied.
  • How this report contributes to the scientific literature, with a summary of the literature review that investigates what other structural integration or manual therapy research has been done for the outcome measures and the conclusions of that research. Citations, as described below, must be included.
    • (An article of how to conduct a literature search is available here.)
  • A stated goal of treatment and outcome measures.
• Case Presentation, including:
  • Client information including:
    • Age and gender
    • Chief complaints/symptoms
    • History—medical, family & psychosocial (including past interventions and outcomes, lifestyle, and comorbidities)
    • Timeline of important dates and times associated with the case
    • Diagnoses (describe how this was verified)
    • Clinical findings from the initial assessment and other providers
  • Objective assessment measurements. For each category of assessment include:
    • Description of the measurements
    • Specifics of how they were taken
    • The steps taken to minimize measurement error
  • Practitioner Information
    • The Structural Integration practitioner’s qualifications, i.e. which SI school attended, year of graduation, any advanced SI training, any training in additional therapeutic modalities, and any academic degrees; also gender and age
    • Scope and setting in which the practitioner practices
  • Therapeutic Intervention
    • A specific description of the treatment intervention including the techniques and territories included in each session. The intervention protocol must be based on the teachings and lineage of Ida P. Rolf. The treatment protocol may be a full basic structural integration series, an advanced series, or a strategy developed with the principles of structural integration. Although only a summary of each session is included in the report, the practitioner must have detailed notes of each session’s interventions in the files regardless of the SI approach used. Include bodywork and, if applicable, educational interventions. The case report should include:
    • Number of sessions including the length of each, frequency and duration.
    • Changes made in the intervention (including rationale)
    • Other recommendations or referrals to other providers
• Results
  • Report the results of all objective assessment measures in the above section.
  • Describe how the client adhered to and tolerated the intervention, including self-care recommendations and referrals to other providers.
  • State whether there were any adverse or unexpected events.
  • This section is a continuation of objective measurement without interpretation or conclusions. The main purpose is to relay the data collected. If the data is presented in a chart or graph, it should be clearly labeled with legends. Feedback from the client can be included here with notes of how the client responded to the intervention and complied with any instructions.
• Discussion
  • Report the strengths and limitations of the intervention(s) provided.
  • Compare and integrate case findings with the relevant health care literature.
  • Patient perspective (include comments that the client shared regarding his/her experience with the intervention).
  • Suggest a rationale for why the observed outcomes occurred.
  • Provide “take away” lessons related to the case report.
  • Discuss implications for practice, education, and areas of future research.
• Acknowledgements. List any mentors or non-authors who made contributions with a brief description of how each person contributed.
• References cited using the American Medical Association style (http://library.nymc.edu/informatics/amastyle.cfm)
  • Reference primary sources (from peer-reviewed journal articles) for the introduction, literature review, assessment measures, and discussion.

Note on Client Confidentiality. Please note that the client’s name must not be included anywhere in the case report. The data should be sufficiently anonymous so that the identity of the person cannot be recognized.  However, the practitioner must have the client’s consent to be the subject of the case report.

Beginning with the 2022-23 competition two separate best case study awards will be made for:
1) submissions by students in SI training programs at the time the study was conducted and written, and
2) submissions by all other SI practitioners.

The information required with submissions, standards of judgement, and awards will be the same for both categories.

Green BN, Johnson CD. How to write a case report for publication. J Chiropr Med. 2006;5(2): 72-82. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2647062/

Munk N, Boulanger, K, Adaptation of the CARE Guidelines for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork Publications: Efforts to Improve the Impact of Case Reports. Int Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. 2014;7(3). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145002/

Andreoli E, et al. Osteopathic manipulative treatment of congenital talipes equinovarus: A case report. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies. 2014;18(1): 4-10. https://www.bodyworkmovementtherapies.com/article/S1360-8592(13)00060-0/fulltext

Deutsch JE. Structural Integration Applied to Patients with a Primary Neurologic Diagnosis: Two Case Studies. Neurology Report. 1997; 21(5): 161-162. https://journals.lww.com/jnpt/Citation/1997/21050/Structural_Integration_Applied_to_Patients_with_a.40.aspx#pdf-link

Foster Scott, D. Pectus Excavatum and Structural Integration: A Case Study. International Association of Structural Integrators Yearbook of Structural Integration. 2013; 120-126. https://www.soma-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Scott-2013-IASI-Yearbook-1.pdf