York Health Services

*** Please note that Carl York, RMT is not an Osteopath.  Carl is currently studying Osteopathy at the Canadian College of Osteopathy - Halifax.  He is in his 4th year of study.  The program at the Canadian College of Osteopathy consists of 5 years of study followed by 1-2 years of reasearch and the presentation of a thesis.  Carl is able to use much of what he has learned to date at the CCO with his patients under his scope of practice as a Massage Therapist. ***

What Is Osteopathy?

Osteopathy is a medical discipline which relies on precise palpation (feeling with the hands) to identify and address any impediment which is preventing the body from functioning optimally.

Osteopathy is concerned with motion.  The founder of Osteopathy, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, M.D., D.O. is quoted as saying "We know life only by the motions of material bodies." and Rollin Becker, D.O. as saying "Motion is not life.  Motion is a manifestation of life."  Each structure in the body must be free and mobile in order to effectively accept arterial blood which brings nutrients and oxygen, or allow sufficient cellular exchange which ensures that these nutrients are able to be utilized by the body, and that wastes are collected and removed by the venous and lymphatic systems.  Also, the nervous system is not able to effectively communicate to and from an area which is restricted and congested.  Therefore a major goal of osteopathic treatment is to find areas of altered or restricted mobility in the body from an detailed medical history, utilizing his/her extensive understanding of anatomy and physiology, and through careful palpation, and to then assist your body in restoring movement.  Once motion is restored to a system your body will naturally tend back toward health.  Dr. Harold Magoun, D.O. writes: "It lays down the proposition that the entire body, if adequately nourished, functions to maintain, repair and heal itself to the best advantage of its structures and physiological functioning...".       

Therefore Osteopaths look at the body as an integrated whole, appreciating that all body-systems must be mobile and working together as a functional unit in order for health to be expressed. 

Osteopaths use a detailed medical history and thorough examination of each patient to find the cause of dysfunction rather than merely addressing the patient symptomatically. In this way it is taught that Osteopaths do not treat disease or dysfunction, but rather the person who has the disease or dysfunction.

The practice of Manual Osteopathy is based on the following four principles:

• Each structure in the body helps support the body’s function as a whole.  If any structure is damaged / injured, out of place, or otherwise not working properly, the body will not function optimally.

• The body’s fluids (vascular and lymphatic) must be allowed a natural, free, unimpeded flow.  Also the nervous structures must be able to freely communicate for health to be expressed.

• The human body is the sum of its parts.  Its physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual systems do not work independently – they work in harmony.

• When the above three principles are tended to and the body has no restrictions, it can and will heal itself.  It is a fact that all of nature, if unimpeded, tends towards normality.