Osteopathy is a unique healthcare that believes in "whole body" healing through manual therapy that is based upon the biomechanical principals and a wide range of manual manipulations that treat musculo-skeletal issues and other medical functional disorders of the human body.

The World Health Organization recognizes Osteopathy as a medical discipline. Osteopathy is practiced all over the world.

Doctors of Osteopathy can treat anything from back, foot, and neck pain to pains experienced in peripheral joints including the ankles, knees, muscle strains, and tendonitis. They also treat work-related injuries such as repetitive strain injuries, improper posture injuries and also sports-related injuries.

Who Can Benefit

A special field of osteopathy, cranial osteopathy is used to manipulate the bones of the skull with a touch so light that it is hardly noticeable by the individual receiving the treatment.

The osteopath that uses the technique uses both anatomical and physiological knowledge and palpatory skills in the technique. William Garner Sutherland, who was a follower of Andrew Still, developed cranial osteopathy in 1930.

Cranial osteopathy is based on the cerebrospinal fluid, which surrounds the brain, has rhythms that are influenced by the rate and depth of the person's breathing. With gentle manipulation of the skull these rhythms can be altered.

A disturbance of the cranial bones can unbalance the normal cranial rhythm causing strain within the cranium. It is believed that it is this dysfunction to the cranium that causes disease.

Arthritis is an inflammation of any joint. There are two types of arthritis: osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Osteoarthritis is often described as a wear and tear of the joints caused by age, repetitive actions, and obesity and also altered postural and biomechanics (movements of the body) such as a past trauma, growth of the body, and a traumatic experience such as birth, or a vehicle accident.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is described as an autoimmune condition in which the body's immune system attacks the body's own tissue. Rheumatoid arthritis usually affects the entire body with the most often affected joints being the ankles, feet, hands, knees and wrists.

One question you should ask yourself before considering Osteopathic medicine is: In this age of modern medicine, where drugs are used to treat almost every conceivable disorder or dysfunction, do I have faith in a medical science that uses manual manipulations to allow the body to heal itself?

Besides that question, you should also ask questions to the Osteopaths to help you decide which doctor you’d like to see. Some questions you can ask are:

• Qualifications – Osteopaths have different requirements depending on where they received their training. You should find out what qualifications each doctor has before making your decision.

• Years in Practice – There’s a good chance the more experience a doctor has, the better your results from treatment. Perhaps it might be wise to avoid using someone who just finished school.

One of the earliest case studies involving Osteopathy happened in 1918. During this time, there was a devastating influenza outbreak that caused the deaths of three million people worldwide. The average mortality rate for patients during the two years beginning in 1917 was between thirty and forty percent.

However, the hospitals in the US who employed Osteopaths had a mortality rate of less than one percent.

In the following paragraphs, you’ll see more examples of cases involving Osteopathic medicine. They are written as summaries of actual documented cases.