Your anatomy and your physiology dictates the treatment.

Osteopathy sees the body as a unit and if certain pieces of anatomy are not communicating properly then the healing process can be hindered.

“To find the health should be the object of the doctor.  Anyone can find disease.” (Dr. Andrew T. Still, 1828-1917)

What is Osteopathy?

Osteo meaning structure, and path for pathology = Osteopathy.

Osteopathy is extremely safe, gentle and effective. The goal in an osteopathic manual therapeutic session is to allow your body to heal yourself.

A little history.

Osteopathy was founded by Dr. Andrew T. Still (1828-1917) in Kirksville, Missouri, U.S.A.  Dr. Still became unimpressed with their current medical practice, at that time, after losing several of his children to illness. He ventured into the wilderness for approximately a year and returned with a branch of holistic medicine that is now called Osteopathy.

Dr. Still’s philosophy revolved around knowing anatomy and physiology to determine if certain physical structures were not performing optimally, in which case disease and illness could take place.  

The first school of Osteopathy’s curriculum was primarily studying anatomy and all the interconnected parts involved with maintaining homeostasis or balance within the human body. This is known as traditional osteopathic medicine.  Where the practitioner uses their hands to detect asymmetries, or joints not in alignment/congruent with their articulations.  Dr. Still’s belief for medicine was simple: the body that is correctly adjusted through manipulations can prevent disease from occurring.  

The body is the remedy.

A scuffed knee (we have all had one at one point) for example, cuts the first line of defence and its under layers that cause the system to detect damage. Without you having to consciously think about it, the body sends your immune system to do several healing components.  In a nutshell, you cut, you bleed, and you heal, healed.  

If there is a block of the arterial system to bring the immune response, or the venous system to remove the waste and damage from the injury, or the neural system to inform your body of the injury then it is more likely for infection to set-in, infection commences and disease can form and multiply.

Traditional Osteopathy looks at the human system as whole, a working system where each piece of anatomy is directly connected and interlinked.  

Manual osteopathy which is the use of the practitioners hands through gentle and safe palpations to examine the systems and areas in question, always looking for the health.

With gentle manipulations, myofascial releases (soft body tissues), visceral manipulation, craniosacral therapy, other therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises the goal is for you is to reduce your chief complaint.  

What is done during a treatment?

Simply, an osteopathic practitioner is thought to listen with their hands to detect the physiological movements that occur.  A well trained osteopathic practitioner feels inherent movement that occurs due to the increase and decrease of fluids and pressures.  

What does it treat?

There is not one thing osteopathy does not treat because they are not treating an injury, a pathology and so on. Osteo’s treat the form, the individual, the state of the system(s), and provide a safe and therapeutic environment so that your body can do what it was designed to do…heal and function.

 If you live with a recurring pain, such as; shoulder pain, fibromyalgia, digestive issues, concussion, arthritis, or other auto-immune diseases, it all can be treated using the holistic methods of osteopathic manual therapy.