Number of patients seeking alternative medicine treatments increases

• The use of natural therapies has grown in recent years, as an increasing range of treatments have gained widespread use and acceptance.
• According to industry surveys by the Opinion Research Corp., 21 percent of Americans regularly receive massage therapy, which has grown to a $4 to $6 billion annual expenditure nationally.
• The availability and practice of massage therapy has grown dramatically in the Copper Country as well, since Hal Rudnianin opened the Institute of Natural Therapies in 1993.
• Graduates of his school have fulfilled the requirements to become nationally certified massage therapists.
• They include Swedish massage, CPR and first aid, deep muscular therapy including sports massage, neuro-muscular therapy (trigger point massage), cranial sacral therapy, structural integration, myofacial release, traditional Chinese techniques, Chinese massage (acupressure point massage), Thai massage, and glimpses into martial arts, yoga, applied kinesiology, and foot reflexology.
• For the few disciplines in which Rudnianin is not certified, he brings an outside teacher to the school.
• In June, many of his students will attend optional training "on location" in Thailand to study Eastern healing traditions for nearly three weeks.
• Rudnianin has been a massage therapist for 27 years, and currently specializes in structural integration techniques, which involve deep tissue work and "body realignment."
• Duane Savukoski, 59 of Hancock was a recent client of the clinic.
• Following a 2003 gall bladder cancer surgery, he was given six weeks to live when doctors were unable to complete an additional operation for liver cancer.
• Savukoski has focused on improving his lifestyle, and asked Rudnianin to help him quit smoking.
• Hal Rudnianin, above, places a heated cup on the back of Duane Savukoski of Hancock at his office in Paavola Monday to draw the toxins from his lungs and blood from years of smoking.