A Brief Note on Osteopathy Treatment

Sai Shradha^*
*Correspondence: Sai Shradha, Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad,Telangana, India, Email:

Brief Report

Osteopathy is a way of detecting, treating and preventing health problems by moving, stretching and massaging a person's muscles and joints. Osteopathy is based on the principle that the wellbeing of an individual depends on their bones, muscles, ligaments and connective tissue functioning smoothly together. Osteopathy is a type of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical manipulation of the body's muscle tissue and bones. Practitioners of osteopathy are referred to as osteopaths. Its name derives from Ancient Greek "bone" and "pain, suffering". Osteopathic manipulation is the core set of techniques in osteopathy.

Osteopathic manipulation is the core set of techniques in osteopathy Parts of osteopathy, such as craniosacral therapy, have no therapeutic value and have been labeled as pseudoscience and quackery. The foundations of this divergence may be traced back to the mid-18th century when advances in physiology began to localize the causes and nature of diseases to specific organs and tissues. Doctors began shifting their focus from the patient to the internal state of the body, resulting in an issue labeled as the problem of the vanishing patient. A stronger movement towards experimental and scientific medicine was then developed. In the perspective of the DO physicians, the sympathy and holism that were integral to medicine in the past were left behind.

Heroic medicine became the convention for treating patients, with aggressive practices like bloodletting and prescribing chemicals such as mercury, becoming the forefront in therapeutics. Alternative medicine had its beginnings in the early 19th century, when gentler practices in comparison to heroic medicine began to emerge. As each side sought to defend its practice, a schism began to present itself in the medical marketplace, with both practitioners attempting to discredit the other. The osteopathic physicians those who are now referred to as DO's argued that the allopathic physicians had an overly mechanistic approach to treating patients, treated the symptoms of disease instead of the original causes, and were blind to the harm they were causing their patients. Allopathic practitioners had a similar argument, labeling osteopathic medicine as unfounded, passive, and dangerous to a disease-afflicted patient.This is the medical environment that pervaded throughout the 19th century, and the setting Still entered when he began developing his idea of osteopathy.

Muscle energy techniques address somatic dysfunction through stretching and muscle contraction. For example, if a person is unable to fully abduct her arm, the treating physician raises the patient's arm near the end of the patient's range of motion, also called the edge of the restrictive barrier. The patient then tries to lower her arm, while the physician provides resistance. This resistance against the patient's motion allows for isotonic contraction of the patient's muscle. Once the patient relaxes, her range of motion increases slightly. The repetition of alternating cycles of contraction and subsequent relaxation help the treated muscle improve its range of motion.