Our passionate osteopaths are here to help, no matter what your lifestyle or current physical needs are. We have seen some gaps in treatments available, particularly for post-partum women, so we have introduced Movement Therapy! We asked one of our Osteos, Jewel, what movement therapy is and what you can expect in an appointment.
What can I expect at a Movement Therapy Appointment?
Initial assessment
Movement therapy sessions are sessions undertaken by one of our trained osteopaths. These consults are 60 minutes in length and include a combination of hands-on osteopathic treatment and hands-off movement-based exercises. These movement-based therapy sessions are individualized to your body, taking your goals, occupation, and lifestyle into account.
Movement therapy sessions, like regular osteopathic appointments, are aimed at reducing pain, restoring movement and achieving your long term goals. Your osteopath will look at your occupation, lifestyle and previous or current injuries or conditions when putting together your movement therapy management plan.
During your consultation, your osteopath will look at your overall posture from head to toe. This will identify any postural imbalances that might be contributing to any aches, pains or stiffness. Along with assessing your posture, your osteopath will also evaluate the positioning and quality of how your joints move, in conjunction with your ligaments and muscles, to diagnose your pain and address the root of the problem, not just the symptom. This way, your osteopath can get you back to doing the things you love!
Hands-On Treatment
Once your osteopath has assessed what is happening with your body, they will go into hands-on treatment. This will help increase joint movement, decrease muscle tension and improve circulation and drainage to damaged tissue to help repair the tissue. Your osteopath might use a range of techniques including a mix of massage, joint movement, stretching, manipulation and cranial.
Movement-based exercise
Along with hands-on treatment, your osteopath will run through hands-off treatment. This will involve stretches, movement, and strengthening exercises. That way, your osteopath can run through these movements and stretches with you so you can learn to do them precisely, to be proactive in your recovery. This allows you to learn to do this at home and progress the exercises as you recover.
Treatment tailored for postpartum
The other great thing about our movement therapy classes is that we also tailor them to postnatal women. As osteopaths, we were commonly seeing a gap in postpartum woman’s recovery with things like abdominal separation, pelvic instability and postural imbalances from carrying and feeding their newborns.
Just like the specific movement therapy sessions, the postpartum movement therapy sessions will involve a case history, examination, hands-on treatment, and hands-off treatment. To get you back to where you would like to be and reducing incontinence, pain, and discomfort.
Hands-off treatments are tailored to your specific examination. These may include pelvic floor activation and exercises that you will run through with one of our qualified osteopaths to make sure you are doing the exercise correctly.
If you would like to chat with one of our osteopaths more about our movement or postpartum therapy consults give us a call on 5200 1044 or come say hello at our Manifold Heights and Ocean Grove clinics. You can find out more about movement therapy at Whole Body Health and Wellness HERE
