WHAT DO OSTEOPATHS DO?

WHAT IS OSTEOPATHY?

WHO GOES TO AN OSTEOPATH?

Who seeks help from an Osteopath?

Pregnant women, mothers and babies, seniors with all the problems derived from age- and everybody in between. From migraine and chronic fatigue, over chronic pain issues, to stress, bowel problems and panic attacks, e.g. after trauma.

All this leads to functional problems. And this is, what Osteopaths deal with...

Osteopathy

It is a holistic approach- one never only treats parts of the system- even if the pain is seemingly only located in one part- but the treatment is always for the whole ‘triune man’, consisting of body, mind and spirit.

  ‘Man is a Triune’  

(Mind, Motion and Matter)

        Dr. Andrew Taylor Still

  He founded Osteopathy in 1874. In 1876 he opened the first School of Osteopathy in Kirksville , USA

 It is a hands-on-therapy, that works mostly with very soft and subtle techniques. Therefore an Osteopath has a very specific and detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology and physiology. She/he is extremely well trained in feeling e.g. all the different structures, tissues, all the fluid flow of blood and lymph- and any obstructions there.

‘With thinking, feeling, seeing and knowing fingers’

(Dr. Still/Dr. Sutherland)

You may have heard of 

Cranio-Sacral-Therapy, Orthobionomy, Fascial Balancing? These are all parts of the holistic concept of Osteopathy.  

Chiropractice has its roots in osteopathic approaches as well.

Quote from the Home University Encyclopedia 1954

'Osteopathy, a system of health and healing based on the principles that: (1) the normal living body makes its own remedies to fight ill-health; and (2) the body is a vital machine whose ability so to fight depends upon its being in correct adjustment. Apart from infectious diseases, there is another field in which osteopathy is effective, including neuritis and neuralgia, lumbago and sciatica, foot troubles, disturbances of the special senses, and interference with the functions of glands, organs and systems.

After the announcement of his discovery of osteopathy in 1874, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still went from Kansas to Kirksville, Mo. For several years he went from town to town in Missouri and Iowa, treating diseases of all kinds by his new method and effecting many remarkable cures. More and more, patients came from distant parts, until he was totally unable to care for them, and in 1892 he organized the American School of Osteopathy from which the first class was graduated in 1894.

Although osteopathy met with considerable opposition, its growth was rapid. It was introduced into Hawaii in 1897, into Canada in 1898 and is now practised in Australia, China and Japan, as well as in Great Britain and Ireland and continental Europe. In 1939, there were six colleges of osteopathy in the United States. There are 10,000 or more osteopathic physicians in the United States, organized into the American Association and state and local societies.'

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The American Association (now: American Osteopathic Association) and the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville (now: Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine) still exist now in 2010.