PHYSICAL THERAPY

Osteopathic Physical Therapy (OPT)

Cascade Health’s osteopathic physical therapists do things a little differently. Taking a “whole person” approach, we restore balance within all your body’s systems to alleviate pain and improve your function. Gentle and effective, osteopathic techniques penetrate your body’s core internal structures to release tension and restore your muscle tone, joint mobility and flexibility. Appropriate for everyone, osteopathic physical therapy is a healing, deeply therapeutic experience that can be especially helpful for people who live with chronic pain and those who experience conditions such as insomnia, headaches, anxiety and more.

Experience physical therapy like you never have before. Contact us today to see how we can help you unlock your body’s self-healing capabilities.

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Osteopathic physical therapy (OPT) combines traditional physical therapy techniques, hands-on adjustments, exercise and movement training to alleviate pain and improve functionality. Our practitioners are licensed physical therapists with additional training and certification in a variety of alternative treatment methods including myofascial release, Graston Technique, Matrix Repatterning, craniosacral therapy, visceral manipulation, neural manipulation and Pilates-based exercise. Combining multiple therapies, they work with you to find what your body responds to best and provide realistic at-home stretches and exercises to help you continue feeling your best.

About Osteopathic Physical Therapy 

What are the Benefits of Osteopathic Physical Therapy?

Osteopathic physical therapists can choose from a wide range of treatments to develop customized plans that are safe and effective for people of all ages and conditions. OPT can:

✅ Accelerate post-surgery rehabilitation

✅ Alleviate digestive disorders

✅ Decrease headaches and migraines

✅ Decrease inflammation

✅ Decrease vertigo

✅ Improve function

✅ Reduce muscle spasms

✅ Reduce pain, including in the back, joints, scar tissue, nerve, tendons, sciatica pain, fibromyalgia and more

✅ Reduce snoring and sleep apnea

✅ Reduce stiffness

✅ Reduce or eliminate the need for pain medication

✅ Restore motion

  • Carpal tunnel syndrome

  • Chronic and acute pain

  • Chronic inflammation

  • Fibromyalgia

  • Headaches and migraines

  • Irritable bowel syndrome

  • Joint pain, including arthritis

  • Muscle spasms

  • Musculoskeletal, soft tissue and connective tissue pain

What Conditions Can Osteopathic Physical Therapy Treat?

  • Neuralgia

  • Post-surgery rehabilitation

  • Repetitive stress injuries

  • Sciatica

  • Sports injuries

  • Snoring and apnea

  • Tendinitis

  • Trigger finger

  • Vertigo

  • Whiplash

What Treatments are Available?

Osteopathic physical therapy is an integrated approach to care, combining multiple therapies to address your unique needs. Because dysfunction in one are affects your whole body, using multiple approaches results in a more aligned, healthy system.

Some of the treatment options we use include:

  • Ergonomic training and modifications

  • Home programs

  • Strengthening and balance exercises

  • Training in preventive techniques

  • Lifestyle recommendations

  • Myofascial release focuses on finding stiff areas in myofascial tissue, the tough membranes that wrap, connect and support your muscles. We stretch and apply gentle pressure to these areas to loosen restricted movement and reduce pain.

  • Visceral manipulation uses gentle pressure and massage to help your organs and connective tissue move and function normally. The technique is also used to treat other parts of the nervous, vascular and lymph systems. It reduces inflammation to improve movement.

  • Neural manipulation identifies and releases restriction on your nerves to allow them to move more freely. Your therapist mobilizes and stretch your soft tissue and nerves, unblocking neural pathways so your nervous system operates more efficiently so you experience less pain.

  • Craniosacral therapy is a very gentle therapy that often feels like massage. Using light touch, we examine membranes and movement in craniosacral system, which includes your bones, nerves, fluids and connective tissue of your head and spine. It helps to release restrictions and tension to improve movement and balance of the whole system and reduce pain, stress and psychological distress.

  • Muscle Energy Technique (MET) uses gentle movement and stretching to induce muscle contractions to relax and lengthen your muscles. Your therapist will move the body part to a mild stretch and ask you to contract for a short period of time. It reduces stiffness, weakness and spasms.

  • Especially useful for loosening restrictions and breaking up scar tissue in your muscles, the Graston Technique utilizes a variety of shaped instruments to massage and gently scrape your skin. It improves mobility and reduces pain.

  • Matrix Repatterning identifies and releases restrictions in your body’s deepest, densest structures such as your bones and the fibrous tissues around your organs. Your therapist will use gentle, directed pressure to “repattern” your body’s pain response to dysfunction.

We also use a variety of manual adjustment techniques, including:

Physical therapy is always a collaborative process, and this is especially true of osteopathic physical therapy. Because there is an intimacy in physical touch, it is especially important to develop a high level of comfort and trust with a therapist using manual (hands-on) treatments. We help build this trust by listening to your experiences, symptoms, frustrations and hopes for therapy. We ask many questions to get to know you and your lifestyle so that we can consider all the different things that may be having an impact on your health and your body’s alignment.

We use all that information to suggest a treatment plan and explain each of the techniques we propose so that you fully understand how they work and are comfortable with them. As you start therapy, we check in with you regularly to make sure you are comfortable, and that the therapy is working for you. If it is not, we will change tactics to find the right approach for you.

Our Approach

  • If you are experiencing physical pain, including chronic pain, arthritis and fibromyalgia.

  • If you suffer from chronic headaches or migraines.

  • If you are an athlete or very active person who often experiences muscle aches or spasms, are rehabilitating from a sports injury or want to prevent injury by ensuring alignment of your body’s systems.

  • If you are rehabilitating from an injury or surgery.

  • If you prefer a gentler approach than traditional physical therapy, chiropractic care or deep massage.

For more information about becoming a patient and what to expect at your first appointment, please visit our patient information page.

When to Consider Orthopedic Physical Therapy