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Dr. Andrew Taylor Still		 About Osteopathy

Are you concerned about your health?   Do you have thoughts that the chemicals and pollutants in the soil and water as well as the frenetic pace we lead our lives may be contributing to the chronic disease and illnesses we see today?  Do you consider the pharmaceutical industry to be too powerful an influence in modern medicine?  Do you believe medicine is an evolving science, and that there are double blind placebo controlled studies that have yet to be undertaken?  Have you considered the possibility that there are benefits from treatments that are not easily amenable to measuring with the scientific method?  Are you concerned about the substantiated ill effects from medications and medical treatments including but not limited to weight gain, diabetes, allergic reactions, blood cell abnormalities, and increases in agitation and/or suicidality?  Have you heard of the term “iatrogenic illness”--that is the illness that is caused by a physician?   Do you realize how commonly this occurs? Have you or your family ever been adversely affected from either a medication or a surgical procedure?


While visits for back pain to the primary care physician are so frequent that only the common cold induces a higher percentage of total appointments, traditional allopathic treatment for chronic back pain has a long history of very poor results.  The generally accepted success rate with back surgery for chronic back pain is approximately 50%!  Are you willing to gamble with your health in that way?


Dr. Andrew Taylor Still was an allopathic physician who underwent terrible loss during his lifetime including the death of several of his children for whom traditional medicine had failed.  It was because of this that he began to think about how to influence and maximize a person’s health.  Dr. A.T. Still’s work is a response to the failures in traditional medicine and is demonstrative of his attempts to provide a compassionate and effective treatment that is focused on the self healing properties of the individual.  His thoughts and actions continue to lead us toward health today.



Osteopathy leads those who are treated from one perspective to an altogether different, healthier, whole, functional place:		 Osteopathy Can

FROM:
Sleeplessness
Irritability
Tension
Pain
Fragmented
TO:
Rested
Contentment
Relaxation
Comfort
Integrated
Comparison / Contrast with other forms of treatment:
Osteopathy is similar to chiropractic treatment or cranial sacral massage therapy in that it utilizes a hands-on healing approach. Beyond this, an osteopathic treatment could not more widely differ .

The amount of schooling required is a distinction, as is the underlying treatment philosophy. Osteopaths are required to have a minimum of 7 post graduate years of hospital-based medical training which allows us to prescribe medications and subspecialize in any area of medicine as a "physician and surgeon" in all 50 states.

Chiropractic training requires 4 years of schooling and treatment focuses primarily on treating the dysfunction of the spine through forceful "cracking".

Cranial sacral massage therapists (which was itself developed by an osteopath) vary widely in their expertise and level of schooling and more importantly are unable to utilize the basic medical model of diagnosis and treatment as only a trained physician can.

Biodynamic osteopathy focuses on the health of the person being treated through direct contact with and awareness of the innate healing forces that are present in all of us and perceptable throughout the patient.