osteopathy explained
Osteopathy - the philosophy
Strictly speaking osteopathy is a philosophy, not a treatment. Osteopathic philosophy looks at how the body is functioning. If function is correct, injury is less likely and repair occurs naturally. This differs from the orthodox medical thinking which looks for specific problems, i.e. illness, disease or injury. The problem with this is that people often experience muscle or joint pain where no specific medical problem can be found. Sometimes called non-specific pain.
Osteopathy - what is it for?
Osteopathic philosophy works especially well with musculoskeletal problems (problems of the muscles, joints and ligaments). This is because the function of these structures is easy to alter and they are a common source of pain.
The most common conditions that osteopaths treat are:
- back and neck pain
- shoulder and arm problems
- pelvis, hip and leg problems
- sports and other injuries
Patients have also often received great benefit as a result of osteopathy with other sources of dys-function. If you would like to find out more, we should be happy to talk to you.
Why choose osteopathy?
As opposed to chiropractic, which mostly works on just manipulating (cracking) the spinal joints, and physiotherapy, which often only provides patients with exercises, osteopathy looks at the whole body and the way it functions. It then tries to correct this using a variety of techniques including:
- acupuncture
- soft tissue massage
- joint mobilisations and manipulations
- hydrotherapy
- stretches
- therapeutic exercises
harmonic osteopathy - our philosopy
harmonic osteopathy is no different in our philosophy to traditional osteopathy but we differ in our choice of treatment. The main difference between osteopaths is the way they carry out their treatments. Some will use a lot of spinal manipulations (like chiropractors) and some will give a lot of exercises (like physios). Harmonic techniques, which use rhythmic oscillatory movements to gently rock various parts of the body, can correct the function and repair injury much faster and easier, without the need for creating loud pops and cracks. This is a less "heavy handed" approach.