Osteopathy
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==What Osteopaths actually do== | ==What Osteopaths actually do== | ||
| − | The concept of osteopathy is based on 4 primary | + | The concept of osteopathy is based on 4 primary principles: |
#The body is an integrated unit. Any action done to one part of the body will have consequences throughout. | #The body is an integrated unit. Any action done to one part of the body will have consequences throughout. | ||
#The body regulates itself, but when ill those systems can be limited or fail. | #The body regulates itself, but when ill those systems can be limited or fail. | ||
Revision as of 01:43, 14 May 2012
| Against allopathy |
| Alternative articles |
Osteopathy (also called osteopathic medicine) is the discipline of (theoretically) treating disease by stimulating the body to heal itself, with a focus on manipulating muscles and bones. In the United States, osteopathic physicians receive largely the same schooling as medical doctors, in addition to a few hundred extra hours of "hands-on manual medicine."[1] A Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) performs many of the same functions as a legitimate doctor: they diagnose and prescribe, and have the legal and medical authority to so. Entrance to an osteopathic college has the same criteria as that of a medical college. [2] However, the idea that the body can be cured by manipulation has never been proven in any scientific journal and is essentially woo.[3]
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History
Osteopathy was created by Andrew Taylor Still, a Kansas physician, in 1874. Still believed that it was possible to treat disease solely by manipulating a patient's bones and muscles. There is no evidence that Still had any medical training, other than some time spent treating Native Americans with his missionary father.[4]
Still believed that subluxations of the vertebrae (ie. alleged subtle misalignments of the spinal column) had wide-reaching consequences on the rest of the body; in his autobiography, he claimed to have reversed balding via spinal rubbing. [4]
Over time osteopathy developed to encompass a more complete approach to human health; beginning in 1913 osteopathic schools began including pharmacology in their curriculum.[2]
In 1958, Still's name was removed from the "constitution" of the American Osteopathic Association, following most of his peculiar teachings. [5]
What Osteopaths actually do
The concept of osteopathy is based on 4 primary principles:
- The body is an integrated unit. Any action done to one part of the body will have consequences throughout.
- The body regulates itself, but when ill those systems can be limited or fail.
- Structure and function are directly related, and are reciprocally interrelated. (That is, if the structure fails, the function must also fail). This does not mean that a hand is structured like it is because that is the best method for grasping, but that the ability of the hand to function best, is to have the entire body be perfectly in line.
- Active "Relational Therapy" corrects the body in conjunction with the first 3 principals.
Based on those, the idea of healing the entire body is done by manipulating the structure of the body, which in turn directly effects the function of the body. If the patient is suffering from cancer, it is not enough to provide the patient with drugs, one must help the body's structure so it can function better, and be ready to heal from the cancer.
Types of manipulation and intervention
- Active Method - what most people would think of when you hear "nusculo-skeletal manipulation". At the doctor's direction, the patient performs a series of movements over a prescribed time frame. Note: this is not like physical therapy, where a muscle or joint is injured and the motion is to help strengthen or stretch the injured area; rather, the exercises are to stimulate the body to heal, and may have no obvious connection, including what part of the body is "manipulated".
- Passive method - they body is moved by the practitioner. Not unlike a massage, except instead of relaxation or injury treatment and prevention of massage, the intent is again to bring about the body's natural healing.
- Counter strain - the illness is attributed to a continual "strain reflex" in a muscle, so that reflex is "trained" out of the system by techniques of counter strain.
- Direct D/DIR[6]
- Indirect ID/DIR
Holism
“”...shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup, diphtheria, and cure whooping cough in three days by a wring of its neck
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| —Andrew Taylor Still, founder of osteopathy[3] |
The principal principle of osteopathy is that most, if not all, disease comes from disorders of the musculo-skeletal system. This is similar to claims made by almost all practitioners of alternative medicines: holisticism, or the belief that the entire body is somehow connected. Holistic practitioners argue that conventional medical science reduces patients down to their symptoms and fails to take into account the whole of the person. This is, of course untrue[citation needed], but when confronted a convenient escape hatch employed by advocates of osteopathy is that the practice includes spirituality as a factor of the whole patient.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ On the transition from osteopathy to osteopathic medicine
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Study of Relations Between Osteopathy and Medicine June 1953
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Quackwatch on osteopathic medicine
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Martin Gardner, Dover Publications, New York 1957 9780486203942
- ↑ Bonesetting, Chiropractic, and Cultism
- ↑ The amount of mumbo jumbo is thick enough that I'm not sure what either of these two do