Posts by: Patrick van Dun

Osteopathy was originally introduced in rural America in 1874 as a comprehensive therapeutic approach aimed at promoting health. This approach was distinct and often conflicting with conventional/allopathic therapeutic methods available at that time to fight disease. We argue that, in struggling to achieve recognition within the American healthcare system and within the educational academic field that was about to be structured, the American osteopathic profession tried to protect itself from the charges of sectarism by starting to embrace principles of the biomedical paradigm. A comparative and historiographic review of the second version of the autobiography of AT Still (1908), the founder of osteopathy, against the first (1897) was chosen as an example of the adaptation of the American osteopathic profession to its evolving academic environment … MORE

Australian osteopaths engage in multidisciplinary care and referrals with other health professionals, including general practitioners (GPs), for musculoskeletal care. This secondary analysis compared characteristics of Australian osteopaths who refer to, and receive referrals from, GPs with osteopaths who do not refer. The analysis was undertaken to identify pertinent characteristics that could contribute to greater engagement between Australian osteopaths and GPs … MORE

Many parents seek osteopathic care for their infants with colic. This study’s aim was to test the effectiveness of usual light touch osteopathic treatment on crying time for infants with ‘colic’ … ABSTRACT

Neck pain is a highly prevalent condition that leads to considerable pain and disability. There is an economic cost to neck pain at both a personal and broader health system level. Neck pain may be classified as ‘non-specific’ neck pain (NSNP) when there is an absence of identifiable underlying disease or abnormal anatomical structure. Osteopaths play a role in the management of NSNP, but it is unclear how osteopaths specifically manage this condition. This study explores what osteopaths do for patients with NSNP … MORE

Osteopathy in the cranial field (OCF) is a distinctive approach within osteopathy, focusing on the cranial region’s manual manipulation. Nevertheless, OCF fosters doubt in the scientific community because it refers to out-of-date models. This perspective paper critically analyzes the current knowledge in the fields of neurophysiology and mechanobiology to propose an evidence-informed rationale for OCF … MORE

In the United States, osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), is a popular complementary physical health approach for the treatment of neuromusculoskeletal disorders. However, post-OMT adverse events (AEs) are poorly defined in terms of frequency, severity, and temporal evolution. To date, no benchmark for patient safety exists. To improve understanding in this field, we set out to model the landscape of patient harm after OMT … MORE