• Placebo

  • Placebo: the Meaning Response

    Understanding which components of the therapeutic encounter are valuable in producing positive responses to a health care intervention is an important responsibility of every health profession. The ability to produce specific treatment effects that intervene directly with the presenting dysfunction or pathology is the conventional aim of health care practice, and maximising these effects is [...]

  • Placebo analgesia is augmented following prior observation of successful treatment

    It has long been known that psychosocial factors play a crucial role in placebo responses. According to Colloca and Benedetti, no attempt has been made to understand if social observation shapes the placebo analgesic effect. To address this question, they compared placebo analgesia induced through social observation (Group 1) with first-hand experience via a typical [...]

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  • Manual Therapy

  • Sacroiliac joint fusion and the implications for manual therapy diagnosis and treatment

    Assessment and treatment for sacroiliac dysfunction is common in manual therapy management for spinal pain and is based on the assumption that small movements occur at the sacroiliac joints (SIJ). SIJ dysfunction is often addressed using manipulation techniques, usually involving the application of manual forces to the joint complex. Considering the fact many of these [...]

  • Myofascial release: an evidence-based treatment approach?

    Myofascial Release (MFR) is an extremely popular manual therapy approach used by therapists in many professions treating neuromusculoskeletal problems. It is so popular, in fact, that the most well known MFR educator, John F. Barnes, claims to have instructed over 50,000 therapists worldwide in his approach. With so many therapists using MFR and, according to [...]

  • The father of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field: Sutherland or Swedenborg?

    William G. Sutherland’s cranial osteopathic concepts are arguably the most cherished and guarded ideas within osteopathy. No other topic engenders the degree of debate, controversy, defense or criticism that a discussion of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (OCF) will invariably spark. In fact, a recent study published by myself and three French colleagues resulted in [...]

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  • Osteopathy

  • The father of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field: Sutherland or Swedenborg?

    William G. Sutherland’s cranial osteopathic concepts are arguably the most cherished and guarded ideas within osteopathy. No other topic engenders the degree of debate, controversy, defense or criticism that a discussion of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (OCF) will invariably spark. In fact, a recent study published by myself and three French colleagues resulted in [...]

  • More from Osteopathy