Osteopathy Sustainable healing with gentle touches

Osteopathy is not in Germany to the cash-control services, but now various health insurance companies participate in the costs. Osteopathy aims to release blockages and restore a healthy balance by sensitively sensing tension and specific hand movements to loosen up muscles. Osteopaths use their hands and eyes for that. "We feel and feel, we look at the whole body," explains the osteopath Georg Schöner, who is also chairman of the Federal Association of Osteopathy (BVO).

Practiced exclusively with the hands
The American doctor Dr. Andrew Taylor laid the foundations for the development of osteopathy more than 100 years ago. He linked the purely mechanical, almost chiropractic therapy, with an energetic form of treatment. Osteopathically trained doctors, naturopaths and therapists work with light fingertip pressure, sensitively feeling tension and specific manipulations to loosen up muscles and connective tissue. Osteopathy is commonly used in the United States for migraine, headaches and back pain. And even in Germany take over cash more often, at least proportionately, the costs incurred. For example, the statutory health insurance SBK, which pays its insured each year up to six osteopathic treatments with up to 30 euros per session. The chairman of the Association of Osteopaths in Germany (VOD), Prof. Marina Fuhrmann, explained in Wiesbaden: "Osteopathy is practiced exclusively with the hands, without drugs and surgical interventions." Sensitivity and years of training are important to the causes of the complaints The orthopedist Siegbert Tempelhof, board member of the German-American Academy of Osteopathy (DAAO), said with the fingertips and palms..

Press Loosen Stretch
Indications of where body functions and organs are affected can be tensions in the bones, muscles and connective tissue, for example. The aim of osteopathy is to detect such tensions, to resolve noise signals and restore a healthy balance. As a patient, you have to get involved in a thorough investigation, interviewing and being touched. "The most common complaints of my patients are musculoskeletal pain such as back, knee and neck pain, tension, problems with the intervertebral discs," says osteopath and alternative practitioner Andrea Schwarz-Lehmann in Hamburg. Similar to other forms of therapy, such as foot reflexology, the treatment does not always start where it hurts. For example, headaches can be a reason to check the mobility of the feet.

The therapist then uses his grips where it tenses and blocks. The connective tissue is often loosened with targeted movements, the lymphatic flow is stimulated or certain muscles are stretched.

Osteopathy, as a supplement to conventional medicine, has received a lot of attention in Germany. It was taken by private health insurance in naturopathic tariffs and also several statutory health insurance now take over part of the cost. Osteopath is however in this country not a protected job title and so the Stiftung Warentest recently criticized in their magazine "test" (issue 3/2013) the uneven quality of education. Patients are required to pay attention to their qualifications when choosing an osteopath. Of course, this is not easy, as there are no meaningful data from large clinical trials on this treatment.

Effect on the self-healing powers of the body
On possible risks and side effects, the goods testers also pointed out. For example, it could lead to complications in patients with acute infections. Although the handles for osteopathic treatment are gentler than many manual healing procedures, pain and injuries can not be ruled out. The osteopaths themselves openly address the medical boundaries. Thus, the VOD emphasizes that osteopathy is "not an emergency medicine that can intervene in life-threatening situations". For severe and acute illnesses and infections, a conventional treatment is required. But osteopathy can be used there and work where the physical self-healing powers are able to restore the health balance. (Sb)