Guidelines on
basic training and safety

Manual Medicine

Manual Medicine is a branch of medicine, which addresses management issues relating primarily to the neuro-musculoskeletal (nervous and locomotor) system. Physicians practice Manual Medicine worldwide and are regulated by law in some 40 countries.

It was developed as a specialty, subspecialty or capacity within the medical science and profession in those countries, where a need was identified for non- surgical treatment of disorders of the locomotor system.

In those countries where the legal regulations do not list the specialty of Musculoskeletal Medicine or its equivalent, Manual Medicine is a subspecialty or an additional qualification related to one of the historically established specialties dealing with the locomotor system including those such as Neurology, Orthopaedics/Orthopaedic surgery, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rheumatology and Family Medicine/General Practice. In some countries Manual Medicine may also be an integrated component of the curriculum of those specialties.

Musculoskeletal Medicine

Musculoskeletal Medicine deals with medical diagnosis and medical therapy referring to all functional disorders and structural lesions of the locomotor system. This medical specialty is established predominantly in those countries whose structures of their national health care systems do not otherwise imply non-surgical treatment of the locomotor system. Musculoskeletal Medicine is practised in various countries worldwide and regulated by law in some of those. In these countries Manual Medicine is defined as a component of the curriculum of Musculoskeletal Medicine.

Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine

Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine is the equivalent medical specialty practised by the osteopathic medical profession in the USA b. The training for the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree uniquely includes more than 300 hours of Manual Medicine specialty training at the predoctoral level3; this specialty further requires three or more years of fulltime residency with all component model education and testing under direct supervision of MM medicine specialists.

 

Contributors
Lothar Beyer
Miki Ishizuka
Carlo Mariconda
Sergei Nikonov
Peter Skew
Victoria Sotos Borras
Kazuyoshi Sumita
Bernard Terrier
James Watt
Wolfgang von Heymann

Advisors
Craig E. Appleyard
Maxim Bakhtadze
Boyd Buser
Marc-Henri Gauchat
Niels Jensen
Michael L. Kuchera
Kirill O. Kuzminov

Staff member
Stephan Bürgin