Osteopathy

What is Osteopathy?
Osteopathy is a safe, natural, and effective approach for the treatment and management of pain, injury, stress and disease.

Using their hands, various tests and visual assessment Osteopaths attempt to identify the root cause of the problem (which is often not the actual site of pain or injury) and using a great variety of techniques facilitate the body's innate ability to heal itself.

Osteopaths assess and diagnose by using palpation (highly developed sense of touch), movement analysis and visual assessment of:
Bones - position, and fluid dynamics.
Joints - position, degeneration, stress, strength, alignment, movement
Fascia (the connective tissue which covers all parts of the body) - fluid dynamics, tension, and capacity.
Muscle - tone, strength, size, and imbalance. Osteopaths have detailed knowledge of all the muscles of the body including how to test for dysfunction, and how to get them better!
Ligaments - tension and imbalance
Viscera (organs) - by assessing the fascial and ligamentous attachments - looking for tension, torsion, and position.
Involuntary Motion (IVM) - this is palpated for using Cranial Osteopathic techniques and is analogous to the involuntary mechanism of breathing, but pertaining to the movements of fluids, connective tissues and bones in the body.
Osteopaths treat problems by working on these structures to improve your body’s function, and vice versa. This in turn decreases the likelihood of poor function, wear and tear and pain.

The combination of current up-to-date medical and scientific knowledge with Osteopathic treatment methods results in a safe, natural, and effective approach for the treatment and management of pain, injury, stress and disease.

This way of thinking is what makes Osteopathy unique, and the correction and balancing of the musculoskeletal system is our main aim in practice.

Osteopathy literally translates as osteo- (bone), -pathy (disease and dysfunction). However, Osteopathy is not just about bones as its name suggests. In fact the name Osteopathy was not meant to taken literally by its founder A.T. Still, but is a metaphor to signify the usefulness of the body’s external structure as a way of highlighting disease and dysfunction both within the external and internal functioning of the body.

Whether you have a long-term chronic low back pain or have just woken up with a sore neck, we have the time to listen and the professional skills needed to provide the best course of treatment.
What does treatment aim to achieve?
Osteopaths work to achieve a state of dynamic equilibrium and balance for an individual at any given time. This optimal balance leaves you with increased energy and vitality to get on with the things you enjoy most in life. It also minimises wear and tear so that future problems can be prevented.

Osteopaths have indepth knowledge of the Anatomy & Physiology, Diagnosis and Pathology related to the human body, hence are ideally suited to improving the structure and function of your body.

Concentrates on getting you better and putting in place all the things needed for optimum health. Therefore, due to the holistic approach used, things which may have been deemed unimportant at the time of occurrence may be enquired about.

Treatment is gentle, effective, and very often painless.
The aims can be summarised as:
Getting you better
Identification of the underlying causative factors
Provide advice and support
Enable the patient to have greater control over their health
Reduce the symptoms i.e. pain.
Improve the health and quality of life
Prevent recurrences
Prevent problems elsewhere arising from the impaired and altered function due to the original complaint
About The Osteopathic Professsion
Britain's Osteopaths provide in excess of 8 million consultations a year, providing effective solutions to peoples health issues.

Osteopathy often helps rapidly, with the average number of sessions varying depending upon a multitude of factors but is often between 2-6. Hence, some people need more and some less.

The Department of Health recommends patients don't delay in seeing a practitioner for the prompt treatment of back pain.

The Osteopathic profession and the title of Osteopath is governed, protected and maintained by The General Osteopathic Council (GOsC), in the United Kingdom under the 1993 Osteopaths Act.

All Osteopaths in the UK have to be registered with the GOsC.

The British Medical Association’s guidance for general practitioners states that doctors can safely refer patients to osteopaths.