Osteopathy

Definition about Osteopathy :
The definition of osteopathy currently selected, was established in 1987, with the European convention of osteopathy which was held in Brussels.

" Osteopathic medicine is a science, an art and a philosophy of health, supported by scientific knowledge in evolution. Its philosophy includes the unity concept of the structure of a living organism and its functions. Its specificity consists in using a therapeutic mode which aims at reharmonize the reports of mobility and fluctuation of the anatomical structures. Its art consists of the application of its concepts to the medical practice in all its branches and specialities. Its science includes in particular knowledge behavioral, chemical, physical and biological relating to the re-establishment and the safeguarding of health, thus the prevention of the disease and with the relief of the patient.
The concepts osteopathic highlight the following principles:
The body, by a complex system of balance, tends to the auto-regulation and the auto-cure with the processes of the disease.
The human body is an entity in which the structure and the function are mutually and reciprocally interdependent.
A rational treatment is founded on this philosophy and its principles. It supports the Structure concept in its diagnostic and therapeutic approach by average handbooks. "

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osteopathy takes care of the mechanical disorders of the human body,qu’ils are at the level of cranium, the vertebrae, the members, or l’abdomen.

A migraine, a gastric backward flow, a torti coli, etc: These generally acute pathologies, very current, are often treated in allopathic medicine by treatments sometimes heavy, of anti-inflammatory, and could be well better treated by some osteopathy consultations.
Indeed, the anti-inflammatory drugs cause to mask pathology by shorting-circuit of inflammation, essential process in the cure. The inflammation has a cause and has as consequences, of the intense pains, an antalgic position, etc. Treatment allopathic of mechanical pathologies is not durable. The causes of pathology are hidden and will appear again in the same form or a different form, under a chronic aspect, which will make the true treatment even more difficult to carry out.

The osteopath seeks the cause of inflammation and the draft. The treatment is total: Near the lesion, by restoration of dynamics tissue, and remote, by a work on the vascularization and innervation of this fabric "MECA, NEURO, VASCU". This treatment is appreciably the same one according to each pathology, that's why a knowledge without fault of anatomy and human physiology are essential.

However, the osteopath does not claim all to look after. Degenerative diseases, cancer, irreversible lesions such as the fractures. The osteopathic diagnosis is crucial because it allows to the therapeutist to eliminate pathologies which may not be treated in osteopathy and to reorientate the patient towards a rather homeopathic or allopathic medicine.

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Biography of Andrew Taylor Still:
Doctor Andrew Taylor Still was born in Virginia in 1828, wire of Pasteur methodist, Pasteur Abraham Still. From his youth also, Andrew Still assisted his father in the exercise of medicine. Medicine of the time, and especially in the United States, was far from to have reached the degree of specialization which it reached nowadays. The therapeutic one and even the diagnosis was often very approximate.

It is in the surgery and medical school of Kansas City, Missouri, that Still in the beginning of the years 1860, comes to make its studies. It thus acquires a complete formation on the medicine and the surgery of its time.

In 1864, an epidemic of spinal meningitis prevails in Kansas it will carry three of his children. Terribly affected by these deaths and deeply convinced that the therapeutic one of its time was often ineffective, and even more dangerous than the disease than it was supposed to treat, Still directs its life of doctor towards what he called a new way, and who was going to give birth, ten years later, at osteopathy.

Little convinced of the effectiveness therapeutic of its time, it devotes the ten years which follow the death of his children (of 1864 to 1874) in the search "of another way".

Still will develop its palpation with the extreme. Thanks to its formation of surgeon and with his many years spent to dissect, it had a very precise knowledge of the anatomy. Its tactile direction if was developed, says one, that it could recognize with the touch even the major structures of the organization.

June 1874, Doctor Andrew Taylor Still speaks to his fellow-members officially about the result about his research. He names "osteopathy" his diagnostic and therapeutic system, of the Greek, osteon, "bone" and pathos, "affection, disease".

In 1892, Still receives the authorization to found the American School of Osteopathy with Kirksville, Missouri, which will be at the same time a center of care and teaching of osteopathy, the first of the kind.

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Why to consult?

General information:
The great reason for consultation is the back pain. This pain has often various origins, that the patient does not suspect (visceral, cranial, peripheral, etc). In all the cases, the osteopath will treat the mechanical aspect of this pain; by finding the mobility of the articulations which are not mobile any more.

The vertebral handling, most known of the public, often creates a "crac". This noise is not to in no case sign of success of the treatment, although it creates an instantaneous relief most of the time, nor a sign of dangerosity of handling. This noise is for the majority of the authors a depression will intra capsular which creates a CO2 release (passage of a liquid state a gas state) in the socket.

The therapeutist seeks before very finding a lost mobility of the articulation, that it is a vertebral or peripheral articulation (upper limbs and Inferior).

A back pain or a low back pain mean a pain and a blocking. With the end of the consultation of osteopathy, the patient must feel more mobile and feel a better flexibility of his spinal column. Thus, a back pain or a low back pain must be improved overall at the end of a session and improved well even neat at the end of 2. This is obviously the ideal case, and any patient, depending on the state of its articulations (osteoarthritis, etc.) will react differently to a session.

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When and Why to consult?
From its birth to the end of its life, any human being can profit from a treatment osteopathic. As osteopathy makes it possible to restore the function, and that it can act with a curative aim but even more with a one aim of prevention, the indications of a treatment osteopathic are very broad.

In a general way, osteopathy is indicated in the cases of: :
• Problems related to the birth:
• Deformation of cranium, disturbed sleep, régurgitations, asthma, certain neurological problems, etc.
• Problems related on the growth (scoliosis, kyphosis...), on the various traumatisms and puberty.
• Problems of spinal column (sciatic nerve pains, lumbago, stiff neck), headaches, etc.
• Visceral problems: genital (urinary incontinence...), colites, etc.

Here is a list of pathologies which can be looked after by osteopathy. (This list is not in any exhaustive manner).
Many pathologies can be the object of care osteopathic:
• Headaches
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Buzzes of ears (acouphenes)
• Pains and certain ocular problems
• Stiff neck
• Pains neck, shoulders, arm (periarthritis)
• Ants in the hands
• Acute, chronic Back pain
• Intercostal pains
• Lumbago
• Sciatic
• Cruralgie
• Sporting accidents: distorsions bends, wrist, fingers, knees, ankle, foot
• Continuations of a surgical operation
• Articular stiffnesses
• Functional recovery
• Certain ENT demonstrations: sinusitises, otitises, headaches noises in the ears (acouphenes), giddinesses
• Certain visceral demonstrations: gastric backward flow, flatulences, intestinal transit time - constipation - diarrhoea
• Many problems of the pregnant woman:
• Follow-up of the pregnancy:
• Help with the childbirth:
• Follow-up of the post partum for a fast recovery of the various functions
• Infant: problems related to the birth:
• Problems of sleep, agitation, nervousness:
• Neurological problems certain neonatales paralyses: strabism
• Regurgitations
• Asthma
• Colics
• Deformations of the cranium (forceps, suction cup)

In the infants the technique used is a cranial technique, (this one also is very often used in the adults).

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Osteopathy and Sports

Role of osteopathy in the sport:
Osteopathy has a role one cannot more important in the salary and the therapeutic follow-up sportsmen to the general direction of the term.

At the time of a wound, or in the operational continuations following a more or less serious wound, the osteopath will shorten the duration of convalescence of the sportsman.

A sportsman can consult an osteopath in various manners:
• Simple treatment following wound or pathology,
• "Balancing" of the locomotor apparatus,
• Ask of follow-up on the means.

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Osteopathy in the world of sport and spectacle:
Since already of many years, majority of the clubs of high level sports (Soccer, Rugby, Volleyball, Basketball, etc.) have an osteopath in their rows.

For some time, osteopathy also develops in the medium of the spectacle, the company, and in the clubs of weaker sport of level. Indeed, osteopathy allows, by the structural techniques, to reduce the effects of the stress, to treat articular pathologies due to the prolonged fixed positions (standard cervical stiffness, lumbago, etc), minor pathologies such as the distorsions of ankle.

Indeed, for example, a football club not having the same means than a large club, will not get to its players equipment enabling them to provide an optimal effort and to ensure a maximum safety to them. Thus, the wounds will be done more easily, and the role of the osteopath is to limit at the maximum the after-effects and to shorten the duration of convalescence.

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