If you're struggling with back pain, neck pain, joint stiffness, sciatica, or a sports injury, you may have wondered whether you should see an osteopath, chiropractor, or physiotherapist.

In this episode of the Pain Free Living Podcast, osteopath Bob Allen and change coach Louise Gordon tackle one of the most common questions in musculoskeletal healthcare

What is the difference between the three professions and how do you choose the right practitioner for you?

Bob explains how osteopaths, chiropractors, and physiotherapists are all highly trained, regulated healthcare professionals, but each has a slightly different philosophy and approach to helping you recover from pain and injury.

You'll find out how osteopaths take a whole-body approach, why chiropractors often focus on the spine and nervous system, and how physiotherapists use exercise and rehabilitation to support recovery.

Most importantly, you'll learn why finding the right practitioner often comes down to communication, trust, and feeling confident in the treatment plan being offered rather than the name of their profession.

Key Takeaways

• Osteopaths, chiropractors, and physiotherapists are all regulated healthcare professionals.
• Each profession has a different training background and treatment philosophy.
• There is no single "best" approach for everyone.
• A good practitioner should explain your diagnosis and treatment plan clearly.
• Feeling comfortable with your therapist is often one of the most important factors in successful treatment.

Whether you're dealing with a new injury or long-standing pain, this episode will help you make a more informed decision about where to seek help.

Learn More

Bob's story: https://bit.ly/BobsOsteoStory

Louise Gordon: https://bit.ly/LouiseGordon

Newsletter: https://bit.ly/PFL_newsletter_signup

Podcast, socials and more: https://linktr.ee/Painfreeliving

Disclaimer

Please note that any tips or advice given in this podcast does not constitute medical, healthcare or any other form of professional advice. If you have health or other issues, please seek advice specific to your circumstances from a qualified healthcare, medical, or other relevant professional.

Hello and welcome to the Pain Free Living Podcast.

My name's Bob Allen and my aim is to help you to live pain free.

Let's begin.

Hello and welcome to the Pain Free Living Podcast.

I'm Bob Allen.

I'm Louise Gordon.

I am a change coach and consultant, so I work with people and businesses to navigate change and I'm here to ask you, Bob, all the questions.

She certainly is.

And today we're going to be talking about the difference between a chiropractor, an osteopath and a physiotherapist.

Something I get asked a lot.

Sounds like the start of a really bad joke, but let's get into it and see where we go from there.

So, Bob, what is the difference then between an osteopathic chiropractor and a physiotherapist?

Louise, I knew you were going to ask me that.

Instinct, I think.

Where to begin?

To start with all protected titles, to allow yourself to be called an osteopath, physiotherapist or chiropractor, you have to have completed a certain number of years of training.

We are all regulated by different authorities.

So for an osteopath it's the General Osteopathic Council, for chiropractors it's a general chiropractic council and for physiotherapists it's the hcpc.

And I can't remember what that stands for, but yes.

So we all have regulatory bodies and if you have any concerns about the qualifications for the therapist you're going to see, you can look them up and it will have all their details, when they graduated, etc.

Etc.

In terms of qualifications, we're all highly qualified.

The main difference between osteopaths, chiropractors and physiotherapists, I can speak from an osteopathic experience because that's what I did.

So the degree course was four years full time or five years part time, which is the version that I did.

We do lots of ologies, we do physiology, biology, pathology and loads of ologies.

So that's all part of the training that we do.

For chiropractors, it's something similar.

Again, it's a four or five year qualification period and I can't really speak for what's involved in the course because I'm not, but you know, they Cover the similar sort of things to what we do physiotherapy.

They do between three and four years on their degree course and, yeah, again, they're fully regulated.

Again, I can't really talk about what they do because I don't know.

But, you know, it's very exercise based.

What is it that got you into osteopathy?

There's a question.

So way back when, a family member had some muscle and joint problems, they'd gone through the NHS and hadn't had great results.

I was chatting about that to a friend and they suggested taking them to an osteopath.

I'd never heard of osteopathy, didn't have a clue, so took them along to an osteopath and they were treated and things improved.

Really fascinated me.

Never seen one in action.

Didn't really know what they were going to do.

And there's lots of muscle and joint movements.

I asked lots of questions.

It just triggered something somewhere and I thought, this is really interesting.

So I then went back to see the osteopath a couple of times without my family member and, yeah, just kind of got drawn into it.

The job that I was doing at the time had stopped being fun and I was looking for something else and then I thought, oh, no, I could do this osteopathy thing.

So that's what I did.

Wow.

And no looking back.

Lots of looking back and thinking, oh, my God, I didn't realise how hard it was going to be.

But actually, yeah, it's all been worth it.

And it's a massive change from what you did before as well, isn't it?

It is, it is, yeah.

20 years of computers, that's what I did.

So, yeah, time for a change.

Coming back to, then, the difference between an osteopath, chiropractor and physio.

We've talked about the.

Obviously there's the training element.

What's the difference in terms of the approaches of them?

The approach is actually very similar, but in terms of what we're taught, that's very different.

So as an osteopath, we get taught to look at all of the body systems.

We take a detailed case history, which all therapists do, but we are taught to look quite holistically at the body.

So we will look at all the different systems, we'll look at muscles and joints.

Although I think holistic is an overused term, it's very applicable to osteopaths because that is what we do.

Chiropractors are trained and taught with a slightly different Philosophy.

So for a chiropractor, because the body is pretty much controlled by the nervous system, nerves go to the organs, to the muscles, they send information back to the brain.

The theory behind chiropractic is that as.

As long as the nervous system is working and functioning correctly, then the body will function correctly.

So they are very specific about working with the spine and the nerves coming into and out of the spine, just in case there may be some nerve compression, some restriction in joints, which can potentially affect how the body works and moves.

So that's the chiropractic side of things.

And for physiotherapists, physiotherapy is very much exercise based.

Exercise and rehab, rehabilitation techniques based.

So it's more focused on actually using exercise as an aid to recovery.

Is there one approach that is better than the others?

Osteopathy, obviously.

But taking my osteopath's hat off, I would say that no, there's no one best approach because different things work for different people, which is why acupuncture can work for some people.

Crystal healing works for some people.

Angel therapy works for some people.

So all of the different things have benefits.

So it doesn't really matter what somebody practices.

The thing about osteopathy, chiropractic and physiotherapy is that they are all regulated.

You know, there are certain standards that we have to adhere to.

So we have to do 30 hours of CPD every year.

And there are other things that we have to comply with.

We have a regulatory body that will make sure we are maintaining that certain standard.

So that's one of the key things about what we practice.

But as long as we adhere to that, there is no one best approach.

So it's very much down to the practitioner.

So how then do you decide or what would your advice be in terms of, you know, deciding which one do I see?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.

So I would say that the best way to decide what therapist to see is talk to them.

Well, talk to family and friends, ask about recommendations, because if you just Google something, who knows what's going to come up?

So talk to family and friends, see if they've got any recommendations or anyone they've heard of.

That's quite good.

And for smaller practices, talk to the person you're likely to be seeing, let them know what the problem is and ask them about potential treatment approach, those sorts of questions.

And if they give you the answers that satisfy you and you think that sounds like a person who I could go and See, then go and see them.

You know, try a couple of treatments and see if it works for you or not.

If on the other hand you speak to them and they try and keep come out with a lot of terms that you don't understand, then probably want to look for somebody else.

If it's a bigger practice, then you generally don't get a chance to talk to individual practitioners.

But go for an appointment and you will get a feel for whether that's a person that you can work with and could help you.

So I guess my takeaway then from your obviously sharing the differences and what to look for, the takeaway pretty much is you being comfortable with whoever you decide to seek treatment from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when you go and see a therapist, they should give you a treatment plan.

They should explain what they think the problem is.

They should explain what they're going to do about that.

And if you've seen them a couple of times and they don't seem to be making progress, then they should be happy to review what they've given you, what processes you've gone through and then revise it.

You know, if you've been going to see someone for a number of treatments and they don't seem to be making a difference, ask why not ask them what the alternatives are and they should be happy to explain why they're doing what they're doing.

And if things need to change, then they should be happy to change that as well.

Great.

So thank you, Bob.

Thanks for clarifying the difference between the three.

I've learned something new there.

Good.

In a nutshell, that is the difference between an osteopathic chiropractor and a physiotherapist.

If you want to know more, feel free to reach out and get in touch.

All social connections will be in the show notes.

If you've got any questions then yet again, please feel free to get in touch if you found this podcast useful.

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And yeah, the more people that get to hear about this, the more we can spread the message of what pain free living is all about.

Thanks for listening.

Okay, we've come to the end of the episode.

Hope you enjoyed it, hope you learned a few things and please tell all your friends like and subscribe and I'll see you next time.