It is only by experience that one can tell how often to treat. Each
case is a special study; what would be quite sufficient for a certain
individual with a given disease would not be at all suitable for a
second individual with the same disease. As in drugs what is suitable
for one person would not be adapted to another, because the make up
of each individual is entirely different; but here the parallelism
diverges, for in drugs there is a foreign agent introduced into the
system, while in osteopathic treatment the curative agent is entirely
harmonious with the idiosyncrasies of the individual. It is for this
reason that experience in practice is so essential.
Most cases should not be treated, as a rule, after a meal unless the
patient is suffering from some digestive disturbance; for treating
other regions of the body outside of the digestive tract causes more or
less stimulation of the parts treated and thereby draws blood away from
the organs of digestion. Cases of disordered brain circulation, where
the patient is unable to rest or sleep at night, should be treated at
about their retiring time so that the circulation of the body may be
equalized, thus giving the patient undisturbed rest.
To show in a practical way the methods of experienced osteopaths in
this matter G. J. Helmer[32] is quoted: “I submit the following table
to illustrate the frequency of treatment in one hundred cases taken
from my practice: one case three times per week, sixty-three cases
two times per week, twenty-two cases one time per week, nine cases
once every two weeks, five cases once every four weeks. Comparing
the present with the past, I find I am lengthening the time between
treatments with much better results.”
Another very practical side of the question and one which will be
greatly appreciated by the patient, is the lessened cost for the same
result in the less frequent treatments, as well as the saving in time.
With the loss in going to the office, rest after treatment, not to
mention possible wait while there, three times weekly represents more
time than the average person can well spare and not infrequently will
deter him from continuing. More especially is this true of those coming
from a distance.
=Length of Treatment and Overtreatment.=—Naturally the length of
treatment depends upon the case at issue and nothing more. There is no
reason why any two cases should be treated for the same length of time
unless they present identical lesions and then the personal equation
of the two might present such a wide difference of aspect as to forbid
such a proceeding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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