What’s the difference between Physio, Osteo and Chiro?

Lots of people ask what is the difference between Osteopathy, Chiropractic and Physiotherapy and as an Osteopath this can be a hard question to answer.  The reason being, is that at the end of the day we all want to help fix you using our hands,  but, in a nutshell it is all about our philosophy and what treatment YOU prefer. 

To sum it up as Osteopaths we want to find what is causing your problem with the aim to fix it with hands on treatment and rehab where necessary and then assist you to manage it so that the issue doesn’t reoccur again.

As Osteopath’s we look holistically.  What this means is, if you come in with knee pain, after a careful history we may complete an assessment of your ankle, knee, hip and low back and then treat the area’s required to help your knee pain.

From a treatment point of view, we have many tools in our toolbox.We do on occasions crack necks and backs on some people but on other patients we use soft tissue techniques, MET (push against me type of stretching) or cranial osteopathy for example.Because we spend the time taking your history, and getting to ‘know you,’ as a team we work out what sort of treatment you may respond best to.Please note we never ‘crack’ kids necks or backs and with adult patients we always discuss if this is the type of treatment best for you.