About Osteopathy
What is it?
Osteopaths view health and illness from a musculo-skeletal perspective. Osteopathy is a system of diagnosis and treatment that lays emphasis on the structural and functional integrity of the body. Through a variety of techniques, joints are mobilised, muscle tension altered, blood and nerve supply to tissues enhanced, the body's own healing mechanisms facilitated and its capacity for compensation improved. Advice on posture and exercise may be provided to aid recovery, promote health and prevent recurrence of symptoms.
A Definition of Osteopathy
Osteopathic healthcare is a complete and distinctive primary care model for treating and/or preventing illness, centred on palpatory evaluation of the whole person. It is dedicated to optimising health for the individual - and potentially for whole communities. It is based on the recognition of the components involved in the reciprocity of structure and function. Osteopathy recognises the contribution of genetic and environmental factors and the influence of lifestyle in maintaining health or in the causation of disease.
Other perspectives to osteopathic healthcare
Psycho-social
The LSO acknowledges that an understanding of lifestyle and the influence that this has on health outcomes is necessary. Psycho-social factors and their role in producing a negative or positive health outcome in patients are explored. In considering psycho-social factors much has been written about the role of happiness in being healthy.
Quote from Hugh Downs (BMJ 23.12.00):
`A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes'.
It could be suggested that exchanging the word `happy' for `healthy' in this context is appropriate when exploring issues of health and illness.
Holistic
Smuts coined the word holism to describe a philosophical way of looking at how living things functioned, both in their interactions with each other and with their environment. It also applied to the individual organism in the terms that health depended upon the healthy structure of the whole person and not just to an isolated part. Irwin Korr, a physiologist who devoted his life to putting osteopathy on a scientific basis, summed up the osteopathic perspective by suggesting that the person was not ill because he had an ulcer but that he had an ulcer because he was ill. A holistic perspective is essentially ecological in that it postulates that the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Ecological
Osteopaths recognize the importance of how the individual inter-relates with his/her environment. The modern osteopath therefore recognizes the importance of environmental factors in the maintenance of health. Hygiene and clean water have had a profound influence on public health. The role that nutrition plays in maintaining health is being increasingly accepted. The ecological perspective is acknowledged with emphasis on the holistic approach.