Parry, Rahadian (2004) The study of demography and co-pathologies of patients attending two private osteopathic medicine clinics: a pilot study. Coursework Master thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

As primary health care practitioners, and in order to improve the standard of care available to patients, osteopaths must have adequate training that teaches them about the range of conditions (both presenting conditions and co-pathologies) they are most likely to encounter in practice. It is important for osteopaths to be aware of co-pathologies as these diseases, their complication and treatment (such as medication), may interact with or be the cause of the patient's presenting complaint and consequently may influence the type and effectiveness of osteopathic treatment. The current study aims to investigate the types and frequency of previously- diagnosed and co-existing conditions seen by two private osteopathic clinics, to relate those to known national averages. The researchers' hope this study will encourage the beginning of a database reporting on co-pathologies in clinics throughout Victoria, and be used as a catalyst for future research. The main co-pathologies identified in this study increase in frequency with increased age. As such, the most prevalent conditions listed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001 census) are perhaps not as strongly represented as co-pathologies in this study. The researchers' hope this study will encourage the beginning of a database reporting on co-pathologies in clinics throughout Victoria. Eventually, this database may be used to analyse the current osteopathic course curricula in detail. This minor thesis was written by a post-graduate student as part of the requirements of the Master of Health Science (Osteopathy) program.

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