What’s Wrong with Osteopathy?

This blog post delves into the challenges faced by osteopathy according to the perspectives of Thomson and Macmillan. It highlights issues such as a weak theoretical basis, reliance on manual therapy, practitioner-centredness, and implausible mechanisms. The authors urge for critical self-reflection and embracing concepts from outside osteopathy to ensure the profession’s development and legitimacy.

Can we agree on a definition of manipulation?

The precise definition of the word “manipulation” to indicate a certain technique has always been quite problematic for manual therapists, and a recent paper attempts to pin it down to something neater which can be universally used and understood. here is the link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36918833/ What do we mean by manipulation? When I was at osteopathy college,…

What’s Wrong with Osteopathy?

This blog post delves into the challenges faced by osteopathy according to the perspectives of Thomson and Macmillan. It highlights issues such as a weak theoretical basis, reliance on manual therapy, practitioner-centredness, and implausible mechanisms. The authors urge for critical self-reflection and embracing concepts from outside osteopathy to ensure the profession’s development and legitimacy.

The Placebo Response: Time to come out of the shadows

While I have been gaily writing blogs on any passing topic that piques my interest, I am all too well aware that I can only do this because I stand on the shoulders of all those osteopaths (and other manual therapists)  who spend considerable time and intellectual effort doing the sterling groundwork necessary to create…

Can you cause a stroke by manipulating a neck?

I rarely, rarely manipulate cervical spines. I hardly ever did CT junctions anyway, but that’s mostly because I never really got the hang of them. But necks, I used to love them. By far the easiest manipulation, I used a cradle hold, had really nice, high velocity and low amplitude and could easily produce a…