What is an Osteopath ??

5min read

We should probably start at the beginning and tell you what  Osteopathy is.

Being a fairly recent form of therapy (only 148 years old), Osteopathy still confuses GPs, patients, and other forms of allied health professionals  Depending on who answers that question you might think we are in between a shaman and a bone specialist with a little bit of miracle worker sprinkled unto it. 

Let’s clarify that with the simple answer - We are an allied health specialty, University-trained (4 years in Australia and 5 years in France), and we focus on issues related to the musculoskeletal system. 

Now, you are thinking:  Soooo, you work on problems related to the muscles and bones? 

And yes you are partly right, but you would be forgetting: cartilage, ligaments, tendons, and connective tissues. Put simply, your musculoskeletal system helps you move, support, and protect your more fragile structures and plays a role in your blood circulation.

Pretty important, don’t you think? Our role is to help you when that system shows signs of dysfunction. We come in to fine-tune this system to point it back toward the equilibrium that defines good health.

Since I promised you a simple answer, in a nutshell, that is what Osteopathy is. 

Now if you have more time, we can consider your next question: how do we do it?

Our approach is grounded in a tradition of manual therapy. Manual passive therapy will therefore be one of the tools we use to interact with your system. 

Yes, I did say toolS as in plural. Associated with the manual therapy you might get some exercises to bring home, or some lifestyle advice, and certainly a better comprehension of how your body works because patient education is key to a good outcome. 

I left the best for last, the tool that actually defines everything from treatment to diagnosis in all our interactions with you, and that is the osteopathic core principles. I think we are out of time here so I’ll let you go back to booking an appointment.  However, if your curiosity has been piqued just follow me here and I’ll tell you about those principles.