This clinically oriented textbook provides a patient-focused approach to the diagnosis and treatment of somatic dysfunction—functional impairment of the musculoskeletal system and related neural and vascular elements—in the context of family medicine practice. The book explains the clinical rationale for osteopathic manipulative treatment for specific patient populations, diseases, and conditions, and details procedures for treating common problems encountered in family medicine.

In this text, you’ll find:

• An overview of the philosophy and principles of osteopathic patient care—including patient empowerment, diagnosing somatic dysfunction, the manipulative prescription, viscerosomatic and somatovisceral reflexes, and psychoneuroimmunology
• OMT techniques for specific patient populations—psychiatric patients, pediatric, obstetric, and geriatric patients, athletes, surgical patients, and patients at the end of life
• Procedures for treating conditions commonly encountered in family practice—otitis media, temporomandibular joint pain and dysfunction, upper respiratory infection, lower respiratory tract infection, hypertension, congestive heart failure, gastrointestinal problems, thyroid disease, Parkinson disease, Larson syndrome (functional vasomotor hemiparesthesia syndrome), fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain and headache, back pain from short leg syndrome and postural imbalance, back pain from postural decompensation in the sagittal plane, and scoliosis
• A special section on practice issues—office set-up, progress notes and coding, and the standardized medical record