Why Osteopathy?
Osteopathy is a wholistic medicine that treats the body as one functioning entity.
Through a variety of gentle techniques, osteopathy works with the person to ensure that the structures of their body are free so that it can perform all its functions with ease.
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Osteopathy looks to enhance the health already present in the body while not only treating symptoms, but rather discovering the system that is driving them. Treatment is based on an understanding of the principles of body unity, self-regulation, and the interrelationship of structure and function. As osteopathic practitioners, we acknowledge that as people, we are of body, mind and spirit and one impacts the other.
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Concerns that can benefit from osteopathy include headaches, acute sprains and strains, digestive and hormonal imbalances, chronic pain, pregnancy and postpartum concerns, sciatica, concussion, whiplash and others.
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History & Principles
Osteopathy was founded in 1892 in Missouri by medical doctor Dr. Andrew Taylor Still. It was a protest against the current medical system of which he was apart, and which was unable to save his 3 children from spinal meningitis. In the late 1800's Still was already disenchanted with the hold prescription drugs had on society.
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Still went on to found osteopathic medicine in rural Missouri at a time when medications, surgery, and other traditional therapeutic regimens often caused more harm than good. He believed that the cause of all disease was in a disordered musculoskeletal and nervous system (including bones, fascia, organs, and fluids), and to enable the body to create order again meant natural healing, apart from drugs.
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Still created two main types of techniques. One focused on restoring the position of the bones in relationship to each other; the other restored the place of the organs in relationship to the major vessels and neural centres of the body's cavities. These two systems are known today within osteopathic treatment as osteo-articular adjustments and visceral normalization.
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The four osteopathic principles are:
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/ The body is a unit; a person is a unit of body, mind, and spirit.
/ The body is capable of auto-regulation (self-healing and health maintenance).
/ Structure and function are reciprocally interrelated.
/ The freedom of fluid flow -artery, vein, lymph and nerve - must be maintained.
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Treatment is based on an understanding of the principles of body unity, self-regulation, and the interrelationship of structure and function.
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osteopathy today
Osteopathy takes every functional tissue into account, including inner organs/viscera, blood vessels, brain membranes, nerves and nerve membranes. The knowledge of every structure and the palpation* of these structures is what sets Osteopathy apart.
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The Canadian School of Osteopathic Manual Practice is the only school in Canada (with six campuses), who offer the comprehensive traditional manual osteopathy 5-year program.
The world over, osteopathy is regulated in some countries and not in others. As osteopathy is not regulated in Canada, it is important to seek out the provincial professional body and search within the trained practitioners. Those listed will have had rigorous training (4+ years), as well as being affiliated with the Canadian Federation of Osteopaths and the International Osteopathic Alliance.
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Osteopathy in Canada was founded in 1981 by Philipe Druelle from France. The CSO's 5-year program combines a comprehensive blend of Osteopathic philosophy, theory, methodology, technique, clinical application and research elements. Since 1981, Philipe and many others have been striving to be recognized inter-provincially across Canada and put standards of practice in place.
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*to examine or assess by touch
