[6][7] As of 2021[update], the UK National Health Service and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) cite evidence that the Alexander Technique may be helpful for long-term back pain and for long-term neck pain, and that it could help people cope with Parkinson's disease.
Students are often performers, such as actors, dancers, musicians, athletes and public speakers, people who work on computers, or those who are in frequent pain for other reasons.
Alexander's career as an actor was hampered by recurrent bouts of laryngitis, but he found he could overcome it by focusing on his discomfort and tension, and relaxing.
[12] While on a recital tour in New Zealand (1895), Alexander came to believe in the wider significance of improved carriage for overall physical functioning, although evidence from his own publications appears to indicate it happened less systematically and over a long period of time.
[7] The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines state that people with Parkinson disease who are experiencing balance or motor function problems should consider the Alexander Technique along with disease-specific physiotherapy.
There was no good evidence of benefit for other conditions including asthma, headaches, osteoarthritis, difficulty sleeping, and stress.
[18] A review published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2014 focused on "the evidence for the effectiveness of AT sessions on musicians' performance, anxiety, respiratory function and posture" concluded that "evidence from RCTs and CTs suggests that AT sessions may improve performance anxiety in musicians.
"[19] A 2015 review, conducted for the Australian Department of Health in order to determine what services the Australian government should pay for, examined clinical trials published to date and found that "overall, the evidence was limited by the small number of participants in the intervention arms, wide confidence intervals or a lack of replication of results."
"[6] Subsequently, in 2017, the Australian government named the Alexander Technique as a practice that would not qualify for insurance subsidy, saying this step would "ensure taxpayer funds are expended appropriately and not directed to therapies lacking evidence".