What is Osteopathy?
Osteopaths practice a safe and effective form of prevention, diagnosis and treatment for a wide range of health issues. Osteopaths are highly trained healthcare professionals who are experts in the musculoskeletal system (joints, muscles, ligaments, connective and associated tissues) and its relationship to other systems in the body to keep you as healthy as you can be.
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Major update 2012 All rights reserved
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More about osteopathy
Fees
Osteopath Practitioner
Brief history of osteopathy
The osteopathic approach
Osteopathic principles include the fact that the human organism is perceived as a living thing comprising of Mind, Body and Spirit with a normal tendency toward self-
Osteopathy is a regulated healthcare profession under statute (similar to Doctors, Nurses, Paramedics and Physiotherapists) and the title is protected under law. Osteopaths must register with the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC).
To an osteopath, for this to happen, the body-
These are often used together with exercise and helpful advice on posture and lifestyle designed to help you relieve or manage your pain, keep active and maintain the best of health. Research has shown that manual therapy such as osteopathy, especially in conjunction with exercise, can have beneficial effects (especially for back pain) helping you to return to ordinary movement and activity.
The view of Osteopathy’s founder, A.T.Still, was that the physician does not cure disease, it was their job to correct structural disturbances so the body can run correctly and heal itself. In the 1880s Still called his radical approach to treatment "Osteopathy" from the greek osteon (meaning bone) and pathos (lit. to suffer) reasoning that the bony structure was a starting point from which to understand the cause of disease and dysfunction.
On being asked 'What is Osteopathy?" Still replied “It is a scientific knowledge of anatomy and physiology in the hands of a person of intelligence and skill, who can apply that knowledge to the use of man when sick or wounded by strains, shocks, falls or mechanical derangement or injury of any kind to the body”. Furthermore, he added that “To find health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease.”
Philosophically, Still believed that Health is a natural state of harmony and that a healthy state exists as long as there is a normal flow of body fluids and nerve activity with illness often being caused by mechanical impediments to this. Therefore, another basic principle in Osteopathy is 'the rule of the artery" where self healing is maintained by good blood and lymphatic flow to the tissues, coupled with effective drainage of waste products.
Additionally environmental, social, mental and behavioural factors all contribute to to the formation of illness and disease and need to be addressed within any management plan. In Osteopathy, each person is treated as a unique individual, not as a disease entity. In fact, Still taught that the history and physical evaluation of each patient would reveal evidence of unhealthy self-
A brief history on the origins of osteopathy
Classically, Osteopathy is a philosophy, science and an art formulated over 100 years ago by a frontier physician and American Civil War doctor called Andrew Taylor Still (1828-
Following the loss of three children to spinal meningitis in 1864, he immersed himself in the study of health, illness and disease. After intense study and reflection, Still's moment of clarity came in 1874 when he created a system of medicine that emphasised:
1. The treatment of physical disease – through a detailed knowledge of anaotomy coupled with palpatory diagnosis and manipulative treatment, together with;
2. The importance of health and wellbeing (including physical mental, emotional and spiritual health) and the avoidance of negative habits (including alcohol and drugs).
Still was adamant that students and colleagues were expected to “Form your own opinions and select all the facts you can obtain. Compare, decide, then act. Use no man’s opinion: accept his works only” urging his students to study, test and improve on his ideas. With this in mind Glaswegian J Martin Littlejohn (1865 -
Osteopathy works with the structure and function of the body and is based on the principle that the well-
