Osteopathy uses a system of manipulative techniques for treating all body structures and functions, i.e. bone, muscle, ligamentous and peripheral. This type of alternative medicine not only treats physiological disorders and symptoms, but also takes into account patients’ lifestyle, habits and general state of their body.

The aim of osteopathic manipulative treatment is to normalize and balance the functionality of all body structures and systems and to restore the body’s self-regulation mechanisms.

Osteopathy uses the deep knowledge of medical science about interactions within the body and human homeostasis, the process of self-regulation.

Delicate and accurate, yet thorough and full-scale palpation allows us to examine the body and determine the cause of dysfunctions in the musculoskeletal, nervous, and visceral systems or cranial functions.

Osteopathy can be used both for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes. In clinical practice the osteopath uses hands-on methods to adjust body functions and restore the optimal state of bones mobility and the overall tonus of muscles, fascia, nerves and organs. Such mobility restores the body balance and relieves the symptoms.

Osteopaths assess and treat all age groups; there is no age limit for undergoing the therapy.

The variety of conditions treated by osteopathy is quite broad.

This covers not only spinal disorders, but also those of the entire musculoskeletal system. Osteopathic techniques can be used to treat migraines, depression, recurrent ENT-problems, etc.

Osteopathy uses various manual assessment and treatment techniques. However, it’s different from a massage or a chiropractic. A masseur works only with the skin and soft tissues. A chiropractic doctor deals only with the bone system. In addition to these two, an osteopath also reaches for deeper and finer structures, triggering self-regulation processes inside the body, that continue the effect of the applied treatment for a loner time (at least 7 to 10 days). This makes osteopathy treat the entire body as an integrated whole.

Osteopathic Manual Practitioners use visceral manipulation to treat organs and viscera of the body.

As mentioned above, osteopathy is a system of manual techniques that belongs to integral naturopathic medicine.

Visceral Manipulation is based on the specific placement of soft manual forces to encourage the normal mobility, tone and motion of the viscera and their connective tissues. These gentle manipulations can potentially improve the functioning of individual organs, the systems the organs function within, and the structural integrity of the entire body.

You can compare visceral osteopathy to a manual massage that stimulates internal organs. It helps regulate the functioning of large and small intestines by improving digestion. It may also help regulate menstrual cycle, treat kidneys mobility, and restore metabolic processes.

Visceral manipulation may help you with:

• Digestive disorders
• Heart diseases
• Women’s Health Issues (menstrual cycle disorders, inflammation)
• Visceroptosis
• Liver, pancreas, and gall bladder diseases
• Issues with joints and spine

Osteopathic treatment uses very soft and secure techniques. There are almost no contraindications to having this kind of therapy. It can even be used by pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants starting from the first hours of life and elderly people.

A visceral manipulation session lasts about one hour.

Osteopaths conduct a thorough analysis of each patient and devise a tailor-made treatment plan. The treatment relieves stress and fatigue, and the pain disappears. In most cases treatments are given once a week or once every 2 weeks. The total number of treatments and the frequency of treatments are determined based on each individual patient’s needs, state and response to the applied manipulations.

Osteopaths treat babies, children and teenagers for a range of conditions. There is no age limit.

Infants aged 0 to 2

The tissues of the baby’s body are designed to able to absorb most of the stresses of birth. However stresses and strains from the labour or pregnancy can lead to certain abnormalities in various anatomical and/or physiological structures, and health issues may arise. Osteopathy uses safe, respectful and effective techniques that suit infants and children. The treatment helps to ease breathing, swallowing, tummy issues, earaches, and unsettled behavior. Osteopathy can also assist with management of head shape changes/asymmetries and difficulties turning their head in one direction.

Relieving the strains with gentle osteopathic treatment can be very helpful and relaxing — especially to mothers. 

Occasionally the trauma of twisting and squeezing through the birth canal and other factors such as abnormal or long labors, inducement, ventouse and forceps can cause some abnormal strains and tension. Your baby could benefit from an osteopathic treatment in case ofdifficulties with latching and sucking, frequent spitting up post-feeding, colic, an unevenly-shaped head, disturbed sleep patterns, excessive crying, difficulties in movement.

A visit to the osteopath may also be needed if your baby got functional impairments such as torticollis, cranial bones asymmetry, otitis, headaches, back pain and scoliosis. Often classic academic treatment cannot fix such conditions, thus creating a need for alternative medicine, such as osteopathy.

Children aged 3 to 7

This is the age when children explore the world. They run around and move a lot, often falling down. Osteopaths monitor correct and healthy development of their bodies, allowing the kids to live and move without any troubles. Applying gentle manual treatment the osteopath can relieve the pains in the neck, knees and other parts of the body as well as the pains caused by a serious fall, influenza or flu complications. As we can see, osteopathy allows children to be in motion and grow leaving the pain aside.

Children aged 8 to 12

At this age children never stay at one place, they go to school, friends’ houses, sports clubs and music schools, attraction parks, etc. Children spend more and more time outside and often find themselves in unfamiliar environments. During this period of growth the osteopath can help to fix the psycho-emotional imbalance and help the kid’s body recover its natural healthy rhythm. Osteopathic treatment will make it easier for a child to calm down, concentrate, sleep and study better.

Teenagers aged 13 to 18

Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and great transformations in the body that affects all of its systems. Osteopathy can facilitate the transition from childhood to adulthood. Regular osteopathic checks and treatment where necessary are vital for regulating and improving metabolic processes, bringing the excess of hormones to balance, relieving pain, fatigue, and stress, removing excessive irritability.

Conditions that osteopaths treat in children and teenagers may include:

•     psychomotor impairment;
•     nervous system hyperexcitability;
•     headaches;
•     adenoids;
•     meteosensitivity;
•     torticollis;
•     bad posture;
•     hips dysplasia;
•     enuresis;
•     dysbacteriosis and digestive system disorders;
•     difficulties with sleeping;
•     low immune system and frequent colds;
•     cerebral palsy;
•     poor eyesight;
•     cervical vertebral subluxation;
•     dislocated shoulders and other joints caused by birth trauma;
•     craniocerebral injuries.

The osteopathic management of children at all ages helps to ensure that every aspect of growth is taking place appropriately, resolving issues promptly as they arise and tuning in the self-regulation capabilities of their bodies.

“Beauty and Health go together, and this is a manifest truth.”

Aesthetic osteopathy may be also called biological centering as it implies making the human body symmetrical: the right eye should be a mirror reflection of the left one, the ears should be in the same horizontal line. In short, the right half of the face should be symmetrical to the left one. It is believed that the more symmetrical a person’s face is, the healthier he/she is. And this is likely to be true, as the face reflects the state of one’s internal organs.

Facial and skin muscles are directly linked to the work of neural networks within the brain stem. If facial muscles are in dysfunction — are hypertonic or hypotonic — it means that the brain neurons that control such muscles are in the same dysfunction.

Gently acting on facial muscles, ligaments and bones, the osteopath brings relaxed or tense muscles to their normal state. We can see the principle of direct communication and feedback in practice as the signal reaches the cerebral cortex, corrects the existing pattern and comes back with a fixed command for muscles and skin to come back to normal. As a result we get improved skin turgor, restored blood circulation, wrinkle smoothing, and other visible cosmetic effects.

The advantage of aesthetic osteopathy compared to cosmetic massages is obvious. While the massage therapist deals only with the skin, the osteopath can adjust the skull and face bones, and remove certain dysfunctions of brain areas. The osteopath launches natural self-healing processes in the body that eliminate the cause of aesthetically visible facial changes. Osteopathic treatment has a long-lasting effect.

What conditions can aesthetic osteopathy address?

•     eyes asymmetry
•     cheeks asymmetry
•     skull asymmetry
•     face wrinkles
•     normalizing skin turgor
•     fixing posture and manner of walking
•     eliminating jaw imbalance

When people get older their blood circulation and nutrition of muscles and skin worsen. That leads to reduced muscle tone and skin turgor and results in wrinkles, skin sagging, and unhealthy complexion. Chronic disorders of facial nerve innervations can lead to dysfunctions of bone and cartilage structures and muscular-ligaments systems, which may lead to facial asymmetry.

Aesthetic osteopathy not only improves the structure of facial skin, muscles and vessels, but it can also change the shape of the head and spine, eliminate the dysfunction of osteochondral structures. The positive effect is visible even after just a few sessions of treatment.

Craniosacral therapy is a holistic therapy that involves the manipulation of the skull bones (the cranium) and the sacrum in order to center a person’s vertical axis.

The central (vertical) axis starts at the top of the skull, goes along the spine, and ends at the sacrococcyx. The electro-magnetic field, which runs the spiraling movement of the vertebrae, goes through this axis. This spiraling movement maintains normal metabolism in spinal discs, joints and bones.

People may come for craniosacral therapy because they have gone through a psychological trauma, or have lifted too much weight, or got injured after a fall. This can cause the mechanism of spiraling movement to break or cease completely in some sections of the spine, resulting in muscle, ligament, and blood vessel spasms, or a pinched nerve. Pain, constrained movements, heaviness in hands, headaches, dizziness, etc. would be among the symptoms.

Since the spiral movement of the spine stops, the infamous osteochondrosis starts to develop. Most often you’ll hear that osteochondrosis cannot be cured. However if you restore spinal mobility (maintenance mechanism), the nutrition of discs, vertebrae and joints will be normalized, thus treating osteochondrosis, spondylosis, and spondylarthrosis.

The doctor works with the bones.

Cranial sacral therapy is a system of manual techniques that the doctor applies mainly to the bones of the skull, and also the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal spine sections.

To restore the rhythm of the spiral movement in the central axis the physician needs to feel the beating (or absence of it) of the cerebral liquid (the inflow and the outflow) with their hands and then remove functional blocks and ensure that the cerebral liquid flows in and out normally.

Working on the vertebral-motor segments one by one, the therapist restores the normal tone of the scleromeninx and the pial membrane, and also the muscles and the ligaments of the craniosacral axis. Craniosacral therapy can unlock nerve roots, relieve pain, bring the nervous system back to normal, improving the innervations of the internal organs and body systems as a result. Sessions of craniosacral therapy lead to significant improvements in the trophism of visceral organs and tissues.

Cranial Sacral Therapy Sessions

During the first visit, the practitioner makes light contact with your head, the base of your spine, and other areas, encouraging your body to relax and begin to make the changes it needs. A session typically lasts one hour. The procedure is safe, painless and rather relaxing. Many patients fall asleep during the procedure. After the procedure, the discomfort and pain disappear, the patients feel refreshed, it is easy to breathe, and the overall mood improves.

Postisometric correction or in other words Postisometric Relaxation

Postisometric relaxation technique was developed by American orthopedic therapists in the 20th century. Today this technique is widely used by kinesiologists, chiropractors, and osteopaths. Postisometric relaxation can remove hypertension of different groups of muscles and ligaments, and bring them to their normal state.

PIR Technique

The main goal the technique is to reduce increased muscle tension after an isometric contraction, when the muscle’s length isn’t changed. The mechanism of removing excess tension is the following:

When strongly tensed, muscle receptors begin to intensely generate nerve impulses that go to the cerebrospinal ganglia. There they are processed and modulated and are later transferred to the posterior horn, switching to association neurons. After being processed, the nerve impulse goes to the motoneuron of the anterior horn. Motoneurons bring the tonus of muscles and ligaments back to normal.

Medical indications

This technique is used to relieve excess muscle tension in cervical (cervicalgia), thoracic (thoracalgia), and lumbar (lumbodynia) spine segments. It can also be used in case of piriform muscle tension, sacroiliac ligaments, sacrococcygeal ligament, leg cramps (lumboischialgia), etc.

Kinesiotherapy is used to improve a person’s endurance, mobility and strength. It relies on various fields of medicine and uses treatment comprising both of active and passive movements.

Active movement is a movement that is effected entirely by the patient’s muscles. The patient learns to do special types of gymnastics: therapeutic exercise, yoga, Feldenkrais method of somatic education, etc.

Passive movement is the one performed by a kinesiotherapist without voluntary motion on the part of the patient. These techniques may belong to osteopathy, chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, and relaxation. The main focus of kinesiotherapy is on rehabilitation after bone injuries, fractures, chronic diseases, operations, ruptures of ligaments, arthrosis, heart attacks and strokes. It can also be used as a method of disease prevention and control.

The two basic approaches in kinesiotherapy are:

• Active kinesiotherapy — that is controlled by the active tissue barrier managed by the patient.
• Passive kinesiotherapy — that is controlled by the elastic tissue barrier managed by the therapist.

 Indications:

•     Cervicogenic headaches
•     Spasticity after a stroke
•     Lumbar dysfunction
•     Cervical spine pathobiomechanics
•     Thoracic back pain
•     Ligament sprains
•     Scapulohumeral periarthritis (frozen shoulder) with adductor muscle contracture
•     Coxarthrosis (1^st or 2^nd stage) with pathobiomechanical changes in muscle and ligaments
•     Gonarthrosis (1^st or 2^nd stage) with muscular hypertonicity

Chiropractice is known since ancient times as hands-on treatment of mechanical structures of the human body: bones, cartilage, ligaments, joints, spinal motion segments. People started putting it to practice years before Christ, and since those ancient times it is known as bone setting. However, a modern chiropractic therapist must have higher medical education and be qualified in the field of manual medicine.

The efficiency and the speed of achieving results with chiropractic therapy can be compared to those of a surgical operation. Karl Levitt used to compare chiropractic with bloodless surgery. And this is indeed so because chiropractic therapists use their hands to manipulate displaced vertebrae and joints to set them.

Human spine normally has 32 spinal bones (the same as the number of teeth). Each vertebra has its own projection of a tooth, as well as internal organs, muscles and ligaments. This connection is provided by the neuronal network of brain and spinal cord. In other words, all the nerves that come from the spinal cord emerge from the spinal duct through intervertebral foramen and innervate all internal organs and tissues.

That is why when you feel pain in the back or your heart aches while you have a goodECG, or your fingers or toes get numb, etc., it all speaks about certain problems in your spine. These are symptoms of a nerve pinched by vertebrae.

The knowledge field of a chiropractor covers normal biomechanics and pathobiomechanics of the human body. The spine is made of structural-functional units, i.e. spinal motion segments (SMS). Each SMS consists of two adjacent spinal bones, a disc between them, muscular-ligamentous apparatus, and a segment of the spinal cord with the outgoing nerve roots.

The spine functions as a single chain and it is the axis of all movements. If a spinal bone in one segment is displaced, the entire spine suffers together with internal organs, which are connected with the displaced segment via nerves.

Vertebrae displacement is a disorder that can be quickly fixed by a chiropractic therapist. If it is not done in time  (i.e. immediately after you turned or fell badly, lifted something too heavy for you, or your body started aching after a lot of time spent at the computer) it can start osteochondrosis and other degenerative dystrophic changes of the spine. And this will require a more serious therapy.

It is recommended to visit the chiropractic therapist at least 2 times a year to prevent osteochondrosis. Think of it as a regular check-up at the dentists’, for example, or the gynecologists’. If things go really bad with a tooth, you can always have it removed, but you cannot do so with a faulty spine. Think about it… and hurry up to book an appointment with our therapist.

Spine is the axis of all movements and the organ that directly controls the health of all internal organs. That’s why Paul Bragg said that “Spine is the key to health!”

If you wish to have a healthy spine until old age and keep its mobility, follow these three simple rules:

1. When you woke up, do not jump out of bed. Lying on your back, take a deep breath and raise your eyes up. Focus on the coccyx and the heels and stretch. Stay in this position for 7 seconds. Exhale. Lower the eyes. Then take a breath and focus on your neck. Raising your eyes upward, pull the top of your head upward. Repeat alternately 5 times.
2. After getting up, do spiral gymnastics.
3. It is useful to drink a glass of pure water on an empty stomach in the morning to ensure drainage and detoxification of the body.

Even a lazy person finds these three rules easy to repeat every day. Spending some minutes, you save the activity and vigor for years.

Adults aged 19 to 64

Life is a constant challenge. We always need to implement our plans and achieve new goals although it adds to our responsibility and additional duties; at the same time we always meet certain unforeseen events. Every day we have to adapt to new situations and it overloads our body, already full with different events and tasks.

Osteopathy helps restore the healthy condition of the body parts that we usually ignore: back, head, nerves, limbs, joints, digestive system, etc. Osteopathy also allows adjusting the rhythm of inflow and outflow of cerebrospinal fluid in the body and runs the self-regulation mechanism.

Third youth, 65 years and older

Body aging is a natural process. Burden of past years and fatigue accumulate. Normal wear and tear of life systems makes the body more vulnerable to such diseases as colds and bronchitis. People suffer more from various pains, their joints move worse, bones ache, etc.

Osteopathic sessions slow down these processes. They improve blood circulation, remove pain, restore balance and strengthen the immune system. In short, osteopathy significantly improves the quality of life and allows elderly people to fully enjoy their “golden” years.

Pregnancy and period thereafter

A female body experiences great overload due to rapid and significant changes therein during pregnancy and after childbirth. Osteopathy offers treatment and rehabilitation before and after childbirth, helps women regain the flexibility of the spine and joints, restore the normal functioning of the pelvic organs and intestines, improve breathing, and eliminate the effects of pregnancy and childbirth affecting the aesthetics of the female body.

Athletes

If you are a professional engaged in physical activity, the risk of injuries is minimized. Osteopathy contributes to the overall improvement of athletes. After disclosing imbalances, and muscles hypertonia or hypotonia, the osteopath eliminates such dysfunction, which minimizes the risk of injuries for the people involved in sports and help then to reach high results in sports.

Rehabilitation and readaptation

After a severe illness, injury, or surgery, the human body is weak and destabilized. Functional systems lose their normal orientation. Internal processes, such as, for example, blood circulation, metabolism, are violated. Osteopathy helps restore such processes, “recall” the normal parameters of the immunity, return the displaced organs to their normal places (i.e. spine, internal organs, coccyx, etc.). The osteopath also deals with commissuras, sutures, and scars. The therapist restores limbs after fractures or dislocations and rehabilitates the damaged ligaments. And what is most important, the osteopath brings the nervous system and brain function to balance.