
Services
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By applying gentle pressure to specific points on the body, acupressure assists in promoting holistic well-being, relieving stress, and addressing a myriad of ailments through 45-60 minute session.
Reconnect with this age-old therapeutic approach and unlock its profound potential to restore balance and vitality to your life.
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Marilyn is a licensed and registered Occupational Therapist (OTR/L), in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with extensive experience in treating clients with disabilities and injuries. She received her degree from Boston University’s Sargent College of Allied Health Professions.
For the first 10 years of her over 30 year career, Marilyn worked at one of the country’s leading rehabilitation facilities before establishing her own business over 25 years ago. One of the primary reasons for starting her own business was the ability for Marilyn to set the standard of care her patients received as opposed to being dictated to by the medical system bureaucracy.
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Defined as “the study of people's efficiency in their working environment,” this aspect of Total Approach Therapy is primarily focused towards companies.
Marilyn has 35+ years of experience consulting with companies to troubleshoot and identify ergonomic risk factors, helping them to reduce costs and promote pain-free work environments.
These risk factors are defined by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines, and addressing them helps employees stay on the job, work smarter and safer, and be more productive.
Well regarded and recognized as an expert in her field, Marilyn has spoken at regional ergonomics conferences, has been published in the American Journal of Hand Therapy, has developed an ergonomics train-the-trainer program and has helped create many industry ergonomic teams. Since 1995, Marilyn has been a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She consults nationwide for both large and small companies, sometimes working with only a dozen employees or with as many as 500. In addition to her prolific work as an ergonomics consultant, Marilyn has been both a recipient and is an approved vendor of safety grants awarded by the Massachusetts State Department of Industrial Accidents, Office of Safety.
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Marilyn is a dedicated facilitator, committed to empowering individuals of all ages to take charge of their well-being. Through her community workshops, Marilyn shares her expertise to promote health, increase self-awareness, and prevent ailments.
Marilyn’s main workshops include Fall Prevention, Accupressure for Self Care, and Acupressure for Practicioners.
Topics for Self Care Workshops include Stress, Tension Release, Harmony / Balance, Headache Relief, Hip / Knee / Foot Release, Abdomen Release, Neck, and Respiratory.

FAQs
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Occupational Therapy helps people of all ages and abilities live life to its fullest. By taking the full picture into account including a person’s psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup; Occupational Therapy enables people to achieve their goals, function at the highest possible level, concentrate on what matters most to them, maintain or rebuild their independence and participate in everyday activities that bring meaning to their lives. Various techniques or therapy approaches are utilized to achieve the highest level of function. Occupational Therapists treat the entire body while specializing in how an injury, disease or disability affects daily life.
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Pursuing wellness through Total Approach Therapy’s total approach gives you the benefit of owner and practitioner Marilyn Zurwaski’s extensive experience and knowledge of traditional western medicine techniques in neurological rehabilitation and orthopedic injuries as well as her understanding of techniques used for over 3,000 years from ancient Chinese medicine . Her approach puts emphasis on how an injury or illness can affect a person’s function. Drawing upon this knowledge and applying the most effective use of techniques from traditional rehabilitation, acupressure, ergonomics and craniosacral therapy; Marilyn provides many avenues to help her clients regain health and feel like themselves again. Her total treatment approach often includes education, exercises for stretching and strengthening, resources for adaptive equipment, myofascial technique, work station analysis, Acupressure and Craniosacral Therapy.
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Cash, check, venmo or insurance all work as payment.
Many insurances are accepted. With the addition of so many different new plans, please check with the office in advance to determine coverage and payment options.
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The type of acupressure practiced at Total Approach Therapy is Insight Acupressure. Formerly known as Soul Lightening Acupressure founded by Aminah Raheem, Ph.D., It is a combination of Jin Shin Jyutsu, Jin Shin Do, Zero Balancing, and acupuncture theory. It brings balance to the body’s energies, which promotes optimal health and well-being, while it facilitates our own profound healing capacity. It is a valuable complement to conventional healing methods decreasing pain while promoting relaxation and reducing the effects of stress.
The touch, known as Interface, is unlike other manual technique skills as it distinguishably maintains a clear boundary between the therapist and the patient. In other words, it is the patients own energy that is at work during these sessions, facilitated by the therapist’s touch.
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A basic definition of ergonomics is the relationship between a job/task and the person performing it. Simply put, it is adjusting the work environment to the person, not the person to the work environment. An ergonomically designed task or job is one that can be completed easily by a large percentage of the population. Risk Factors identified by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) are the basic principles for ergonomic analysis. The more risk factors present in a given situation, the more likely it will result in fatigue and/or over use of working muscles. Solutions are designed to minimize risk factors which often include education of ergonomic principles, job rotation, engineering controls, stretches and work station redesign.
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As a facilitator, Marilyn’s passion is to teach others. Workshops can be tailored to any audience for the level of detail and information each group needs. Both Acupressure workshops and ergonomic trainings can be created for each unique situation. Class sizes range from 4- 25. Corporate classes can be video conference or live based on the company’s need.
Acupressure trainings can also be conducted live or video conference with a skilled touch component.
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RI OT License # OT00611
National Board of Certification for OT (NBCOT) #AA606509
Certified Insight Acupressure Instructor and Advanced Acupressure Practitioner
MA OT License # 1549
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