

There are five main components to osteopathic care. Since each plays an important role in the overall health of a patient, each should be considered when diagnosing and treating a patient. The five components are:
Treating disease:
While Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment can be used to treat some components of disease, OMT is only one part of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine. Patient education, pharmacotherapy, rehabilitation, surgery, diet and exercise all play important roles in treating osteopathically.
Osteopathic principles:
These are the four major principles of osteopathy.
These principles are thought to be the underpinnings of the osteopathic philosophy on health and disease.
There are only 29 Osteopathic schools in the USA granting the D.O. degree. D.O.'s are fully licensed to practice all branches medicine and surgery.