Cancer Care
"Restoring vitality, enhancing quality of life: Osteopathy's impact on cancer patients."
Osteopaths are often consulted by patients to improve quality of life who present with complaints which may be associated with the after effects of cancer diagnosis or treatment, such as lymph oedema, respiratory symptoms, or nerve pain, body ache, dizziness, headache, digestive complaints, nausea, vomiting, breathlessness, diarrhoea.
Osteopathic management includes manual treatment to improve musculoskeletal mobility, cranial osteopathic treatment to release ten- sion in the deeper fascia, discussion of dietary strategies and advice and education about the origin of his/her symptoms therefore, enabling him to return to a normal active social and daily life.
Osteopathic consultations provide time to engage in complex problems that may benefit from a holistic approach. The touch and body work involved in osteopathy can help the patient come to terms with altered body image and to talk openly about anxieties.
The osteopathic manual treatment improves mobility of spine, soft tissue, enhances the overall vitality of the body; cranial osteopathic treatment releases the tension in the fascia of the whole torso, neck and head with a focus on the thoracic diaphragm and abdominal wall; discussion of dietary strategies that may improve digestive symptoms and that would fit with the patients individual eating preferences and discussion of his symptoms to educate and reassure him that they were part of the normal recovery.
