What Is Osteopathy? Body & Mind Osteopathic Clinic in Toronto

Osteopathy is a natural medicine and manual practice which aims to restore function in your body by treating the root cause of your symptoms. Osteopathic practitioners use position, mobility and vitality to restore healthy functioning in the body.

Osteopathic treatment is hands on and uses your symptoms to guide treatment by locating areas in the body which have caused your symptoms. Manual practitioners use a wide variety of techniques including but not limited to: soft tissue work, mobilization techniques, visceral techniques and cranial sacral techniques.

Holistic Approach

Osteopathy looks at the body as a whole to understand the causes and treatment of health issues. Many recent injuries or chronic conditions may be helped by osteopathic care.

An osteopathic physician does not concentrate only on the problem area, but uses manual techniques to balance all the body systems, and to provide overall good health and wellbeing.

Diagnosing and treating conditions using these techniques is called Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM). Techniques include stretching, gentle pressure, and resistance, known as osteopathic manipulative medicine.

An osteopathic physician may also issue prescription medicine and use surgical methods to support the holistic, manual treatment. Many osteopathic physicians also serve as primary care physicians in fields such as family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.

How does Manual Osteopathy work?

Manual practitioners of osteopathy look at all of the symptoms the patient presents with – not just the loud ones.
We listen to the patient and the patients body by taking the time to assess and examine movement of the structures, quality of movement and sensation.We ask in-depth questions about the patients lifestyle, digestion, and sleep patterns.Then we piece together the information to approach the problem from all angles and facilitate balance between the systems through gentle, non-invasive joint, fascial, muscle, visceral and cranial manipulations.

What are the Systems?

Muscles & Fascia

Muscles are the springs that move us, while fascial tissue the web that holds us together. In dysfunction, both will become firm and restrictive to movement, eliciting ‘loud’ pain that may feel sharp or achey.

Bones & Joints

Bones are the living framework that give the body support and structure. Joints allow for movement capacity. In dysfunction, pain may or may not be present but is usually specific.

Viscera

Organs are the filling of our bodies that provide for bodily function and cellular feeding. In dysfunction the body will decrease mobility to guard them. Most dysfunctions tend to be ‘quiet’ and refer pain to other areas in both specific and general patterns.

Cranium & Spinal Canal

The cranium and spinal canal house the communication pathways of the body, and are made up of mobile, living tissues. Dysfunction here creates a vast array of consistent symptoms and pain tends to feel ‘untouchable’.

Why does Osteopathy Work?

Nothing within the body functions entirely on its own. Osteopathy works because we treat it with consideration to the way the body is designed – an integrated web of networking tissues that are mutually dependant. By working on all of the involved systems, the body is able to find balance and function efficiently.