HOW DOES IT WORK?

Osteopathy ideally aims to re-establish a movement or functionality of an afflicted part of the musculoskeletal system. However, this depends on the severity of the condition and also how soon after, for instance an accident or fall, that the patient sees an osteopath. In the case where a patient only consults an osteopath months or even a year after, perhaps because there were no immediate symptoms, it may not be possible to reinstate the musculoskeletal system to its intended state.

This is not to say that there is no hope for the person. For example, if someone is experiencing pain from an old injury, an osteopath can still relieve the discomfort and adjust the affected area to the best position for it at the present time. However, this may not be the position it was in originally (before the accident or fall).

This is because the body (due to its inherent self-healing ability) has already begun to adapt to the mechanical disorder between the time of the injury and the visit to the osteopath. “What the body does is to find a solution to heal itself. If you can’t do this particular movement, it will find a way to do it differently. The solution may not be the best but it was the best the body could find at the time.” Grimaldi assigns this to a fact of life, saying that we are made to move i.e. walk, run, etc. If a person loses his limbs, he will be forced to learn to move another way. “Life is that. You have to move forward and the body works this way as well.”

An osteopath uses several techniques of manipulation. The first is what is commonly known as “cracking” where the practitioner