The Difference Between Osteos, Chiros, Physios and massage……

We are often asked how osteopathic therapy differs from physiotherapy, chiropractic care or massage.

Please note  – this is general overview that we have found over the years and what many other patients have reported.  All practitioners treat differently and it is important to find one that works for you!  Being osteopaths – we are obviously Osteopathically biased!

Let’s start with the similarities:

Osteopathic therapy, physiotherapy, chiropractic care and massage share a common philosophy: The integrity of the spine is important in ensuring good health.  In fact, this philosophy is shared by almost all traditional healing arts and is also found in many modern alternative treatments.

Now for the differences:

Generally people seek a therapist because of pain or impaired movement.  Let’s look at how the same problem might be treated by the different types of therapists.  Imagine you have a shoulder injury. You play some recreational golf and each year you get a twinge in your shoulder at the beginning of the season. You’d like to play golf pain-free and you’d like the pain dealt with once and for all.

You try physiotherapy . . .

• Your treatment time will vary from 15 to 30 minutes.

• The physiotherapist assesses your shoulder using standard orthopaedic tests and reaches the conclusion that there is some impingement of one of the rotator cuff muscles, which is a very common shoulder injury.

• The therapist might choose to use some ultrasound on your shoulder.

• You will get some specific exercises to increase strength to any weakened muscles of your shoulder.

• The treatment may or may not include hands-on work. If it does, it will probably just be focused on your shoulder or upper ribs.

• You are asked to come back twice a week for eight treatments.

You try chiropractic care . . .

• Your treatment time will vary from 5 to 30 minutes for your first appointment, and last for about 5 minutes in subsequent sessions.

• Like the physiotherapist, the chiropractor might assess your shoulder using some standard orthopaedic tests. The tests might also include an assessment of your spine, often using x-rays.

• The chiropractor will be looking at the parts of your spine where the nerves to the shoulder come out, checking for what is called a subluxation. From the chiropractic perspective, the spine can become minutely out of alignment, and the resulting subluxations inhibit nerve flow, which can cause joints to become injured.

• Treatment will probably involve manipulating your spine to free up the nerves so that they can control your shoulder better.

• You are probably asked to come back two to three times a week for three weeks. You will then slowly decrease the frequency of your treatments until you are on some sort of monthly maintenance program to check for general subluxations.

You try massage . . .

• Your treatment time is usually an hour.

• The massage therapist will probably feel what muscles are tight and will just work on those muscles.

• Generally you will lie down and the therapist will massage the tight or sore muscles to increase blood flow to the area to speed up the healing.

• You will probably be encouraged to come back whenever you feel the need.

You try osteopathy at our clinic . . .

• Your first treatment lasts one hour. Subsequent treatments last 30 minutes.

• We assess your shoulder to find our which areas are damaged or strained.

• We then assess your spine to see if the nerves to your shoulder are compromised. In this way we are similar to a chiropractor.

  BUT we also look further afield because your shoulder never works in isolation:We assess other joints that work in conjunction with your shoulder, especially your wrists, elbows, neck and hips.We might even choose to look at movement patterns. For example, we’d ask you to demonstrate your golf swing technique to see if any restrictions in your hips or neck are placing too much work on your shoulder.  We may even video this and slow it down.

  The treatment is strictly hands-on.

  The hands of an osteopathic therapist are more sensitive and knowledgeable than any type of machine. We don’t use ultrasound or any other machine to help us understand what’s going on.We find we get the best results by keeping the treatment to the work of our trained hands.We are trained to do manipulations (both gentle and firm), joint movements and massage techniques.We also know how to use our hands in a very subtle way to gently free restrictions around organs and other deep body structures to restore health to your whole body.It is key for us to grasp why your body is struggling and assessing and treating it in an joined-up way is important here.  We may work with your hips and feet to enable you to achieve better range in your shoulder (as everything is connected….)

  The course of treatment with osteopathic therapy

  We might ask you back in one or two weeks.Dependent on what the diagnosis is or how severe the injury may be, on average, we will want to see you about four to six more times over a two to three month period to make sure the problem is resolved.That will also give us a chance to assess and help you with any other problems that we think will cause you trouble in the future.

  Blog post by James Dodd