Talk:Osteopathy

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I've made substantial changes. epepke 28 September 2005 23:55 (GMT)

Why in the world would anyone want to read a bunch of uninformed opinions passed off as an authoritative and factual critique like this one? Even on JREF the myth that a modern US DO is just doing subluxations was thoroughly debunked by the medical professionals....not that anyone apparently bothered to do even that much research before recycling outdated history and rumors.

This would be no different than listing the Mayo Clinic as woo-woo, based on the way medicine was practiced 100 years ago, or practiced in undeveloped countries, with a few select quotes from the anti-vax crowd.

If your goal is to fuel ignorance and superstition, you are making headway.

I don't quite understand what you are on about, the only comment I have about the article (and this will be my first comment of any sort here) is regarding this statement:

" In the elaborate social hierarchy of the health professions, DOs have low status,"

Can this be factually supported?

[edit] Bye Bye Crim

You've given me the perfect reason to ban you from the wiki. Now go back to the Forums and annoy everyone else.

This wiki is NOT for people to make valueless ad hominem attacks against other authors. Diamond October 11, 2005 13:43 (GMT)

It ain't the ad hominem that gets me about this; it's how wildly off the mark the criticism is. My revision was of an earlier article that was much more hostile toward osteopathy (and I think probably written by someone in another country, where osteopaths are not as good). I wrote the part about the AOA's rejecting the subluxation theory and embracing modern medicine, particularly informed by the JREF discussion, which brought up some good points. I do think I'm writing in English here. epepke 11 October 2005 22:44 (GMT)

_______________________________________________________________

I wrote the original article, and, as you guessed, am not a US citizen. (I might add that the wiki is not resticted to woos in North America so far as I know). You might, if you chose, have flamed me in the exact same words that crim used. Wisely, you chose to rewrite the article.

Re your rewrite: I feel you've gone too far in the other direction. Even in the US, there are more and less reputable osteopaths. Have you had a look at Quackwatch on this subject? The more respectable osteopaths seem rather grateful to SB for his expose of the nutters. We should, I feel, warn people about the nutters, rather than just blandly suggesting that in the US a DO is an MD who can do physiotherapy.

--- Dr A

I would never flame you here.

But the article can be expanded, as I expect it will be. I also, if you note, wrote a highly critical, perhaps even over-the-top, article on Craniosacral Therapy. Perhaps there could be a section critical of practices. I wrote the section on international differences precisely because readership is international. Also, perhaps you could expand on osteopathy outside of the US. I can't write much about it, because I have little personal experiences with osteopathy outside the US.

As for those in the US, I'm pretty bland about them (in contrast to chiropractors, whom I loathe with a passion). My fiancee's father was a radiologist and worked with some DOs, and the stories I've heard have been pretty good. epepke 13 October 2005 03:41 (GMT)

[edit] Query on what Osteopathy is about

The theory was similar to chiropractic and held that all disease is caused by subluxation of the blood vessels

I always assumed when I was reading about Osteopathy that it concerned "subluxions of the spine". Was I mistaken? --Diamond September 30, 2005 07:36 (GMT)

You're not exactly mistaken.

Chiropractic is based on the theory that disease is caused by subluxations of the nerves running through the foramena of the spine, caused by various problems involving the spine.

Osteopathy was based on the theory that disease is caused by subluxations of the blood vessels running through the foramena of the spine, caused by various problems involving the spine (and still is, many places outside the US and Canada.

I believe that I'm using the term subluxation technically correctly, that it is something that is supposed to happen to or of nerves or blood vessels. I think that the term "subluxations of the spine" is used by chiropractors as imprecise shorthand for "subluxations by the spine of nerves", and I wanted to point out the difference between traditional osteopathy and chiropractic without 1) using too much technical language, or 2) making a statement that a traditional osteopath might want to reword to make more technical. Also, it may be that modern osteopaths "Subluxation" is kind of an imprecise term anyway, and it is usually avoided in modern medicine for this reason. However, because of the history, it's possible that DOs use the term "subluxation" to describe a variety of legitimate medical conditions that would normally be called "impingement" or "pinching." History is like that; terms change their meaning. I'm sure that osteopathic and chiropractic theory are more detailed than this short summary, but I wanted to focus on the difference between nerves and blood vessels, which is the big difference between the origins of osteopathy and chiropractic.

Of course, since you've noted some confusion, then it probably needs to be rewritten. I just can't think of an easy way to rewrite it now. epepke 30 September 2005 16:17 (GMT)