Tools
Osteopathy is a manipulative therapy approach based on an in-depth knowledge of the human body, particularly its anatomy and its physiology.
With this knowledge, osteopaths combine methodologically and scrupulously developed palpatory skills. This whole approach allows the osteopath to feel and define the joint, muscle and ligament mobility but also the modifications of tension within the tissues.
From these observations backed up with anamnesis, clinical and para-clinical examinations (for example x-rays), the osteopath makes an osteopathic diagnosis or an osteopathic check-up on the basis of which he elaborates the treatment.
Osteopathy does not treat affections, but the individual, whole-being.
The osteopath needs thus have a strong medical knowledge and be able to make differential diagnoses to eliminate the pathologies outside his/her field of competence or contraindicating any manipulative therapy. In such a case, the osteopath will redirect the patient to a practitioner capable of giving him/her a more appropriate care.
As Miss Audrey Smith says in her book « Osteopathic Diagnosis » :
"The osteopathic diagnosis is a process of identification of the body structural disturbances maintaining tissues in subnormal activity and finally resulting in their degeneration". |
