Osteopathy as a field of scientific knowledge: the path to evidence-based research

Osteopathy in Russia has now formed as an independent direction of scientific knowledge and has all three characteristic levels – general philosophical, general scientific and specific scientific, as well as its own methodology. The following had been done in osteopathy as in a scientific direction of medicine: 1) its own conceptual apparatus was created; 2) a methodology had been developed that allows the use of evidence-based medicine approaches and mathematical processing of the results obtained; 3) scientific knowledge has a systematic, ordered nature; 4) the object, subject and content of osteopathy as a scientific direction were determined; 5) experimental and clinical evidence of the effectiveness of osteopathic treatment for various diseases and health disorders had been obtained. When conducting clinical studies in osteopathy, a wide range of methods for examining patients is used to obtain reliable information about the condition of organs and tissues, as well as about the body as a whole. Still it is necessary to develop the scientific component of osteopathy more actively, conduct multicenter clinical research to study clinical effectiveness, develop methodological and organizational foundations for providing osteopathic care to various groups of the population with somatic dysfunctions at all stages (prevention, diagnosis, treatment and medical rehabilitation) in order of preservation of human health, prevention of common non-communicable diseases, medical rehabilitation of patients after serious illnesses.