Osteopathic Practice Standards

Hormesis is the beneficial effect of physical or chemical stress to a biological system. At the right level, such stress improves biological function and enhances physical health. Hormesis is also perhaps the most important and little understood way of improving health and wellbeing. This session will examine how loading and cardiorespiratory exercise, heat and cold, and exposure to plant phytochemicals can all play a role in preventing and treating diseases. Examples will be explored with respect to exercise, fasting, foods and supplements, sauna, and cold-water exposure that can be employed as effective preventive and therapeutic approaches to health and wellbeing.

Scoliosis is usually defined as a 3-dimensional curvature of the spine, which is mostly based on the classical assessment procedure via x-ray imaging. However, recent investigations indicate that the spine is less a driver than a follower in relation to preceding shifts in the tensional connections of the surrounding myofascial tissues. Coupled with the novel insights about the PIEZO2 receptors and their frequent involvement in idiopathic scoliosis (see Nobel award 2021), this new perspective opens the door to explore a multitude of fascia-oriented treatment techniques, which will be discussed in this webinar, in addition to the basic anatomy and science behind it. Treatment suggestions include manual therapy and also movement-oriented approaches, such as in yoga, Pilates, etc.

This presentation will explore the underlying mechanisms through which mindfulness-based interventions exert their positive effects on human psychophysiology, particularly in the realms of stress reduction and well-being enhancement. Special emphasis will be placed on the specific neural correlates of different practices, such as focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation, and loving-kindness/compassion-based meditation, which are commonly included into widely-used mindfulness-based interventions such as the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) protocols.

This 2-hour webinar will provide participants with the most updated Evidence Based Approach about evaluation and treatment of patients with temporomandibular disorders and orofacial pain. We will discuss the role of masticatory muscles and the TMJ in relation to the diagnosis of orofacial pain for determining the most appropriate clinical reasoning to be applied. It will also include a comprehensive presentation on the most updated findings related to sensory and motor impairments and how they are clinically relevant for orofacial pain and we will propose the clinical reasoning for their management. Current evidence shows the role of musculoskeletal impairments in the cervical spine and also TMJ in patients with orofacial pain which has set the stage for a multisystem approach of evaluation, treatment and management of these patients.