As an Osteopathic Therapist, I help people who have pain, stiffness and injuries of their joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves, it’s not just about bones. Whether you’re experiencing pain in your achilles, suffering from sciatica, or neck and shoulder pain, Osteopathy can help.
In Osteopathy we view the person as a whole within the context of their environment. Here’s an example of what that means and how it relates to your treatment. If you come to see me with back pain I’ll certainly assess and treat your back directly, but I’ll also take the time to assess and look at the rest of your body. For example, you may have a stiff hip that’s contributing to your symptoms which will require treatment. What’s just as important is that I’ll view your condition in the context of a multitude of other factors such as exercise, daily movement habits, your hobbies, work, sleep and stress levels and see if there are changes we can make in these aspects of your life to help in your recovery.
We understand that each patient is unique, even if they present with common symptoms, as such we don’t have specific protocols for treatment, Osteopathy bases everything on the individual. To create our diagnosis, and to understand the why behind your diagnosis, we use extensive assessments with extended treatment sessions to really understand the root cause of your problem. It’s the why of your diagnosis that is so important.
When you visit an Osteopathic Therapist, like other health care professionals we start by taking a case history, this is where we start to form our hypothesis about what’s wrong and how we can help. We’ll then perform a physical assessment were we look at how you’re moving, we might perform more specific orthopaedic tests were we stress specific structures in your body, and then we may perform more clinical based tests that you might experience when you visit your doctor such as a neurological exam, looking at your reflexes, sensation and balance to confirm our diagnosis. We then discuss treatment options with you, including traditional manual osteopathic techniques, exercise rehabilitation, reviewing exercise techniques and programming. Our treatment focuses on what’s best for the patient and our aim is always to provide a long term solution not just a quick fix.
As Osteopathic Therapists we use a wide range of hands on treatment techniques to help relieve pain, relieve tension and restore mobility to the body. More recently, were I undertook my training in the UK, Osteopathy is transitioning to be more informed by the most current scientific evidence from the fields of pain science, musculoskeletal medicine and exercise science to offer the most appropriate evidence based treatments and advice to our patients.
If you are unsure whether Osteopathy can help you, click here to book in for a free 15 minute consultation where we’ll discuss your problem and see how we can help.
