The British Osteopathy Centre, a state-of-the-art osteopathy clinic in the heart of the city, is boosting wellness quotient in Muscat and beyond, with its owner and Director Dr Mudathir Al Sketty leading the way forward by setting newer paradigms of wellness and by addressing health and fitness issues of patients from all walks and stages of life.
Osteopathic treatment is a ‘hands-on’ approach that underscores the body’s ability to heal itself. It focuses on treating the whole person – body, mind and spirit – to foster overall wellness.
As Dr Mudathir (or Dr M, as he is popularly known), an Omani-origin Doctor of Osteopathy, explains: “Osteopathy is a holistic, wholebody approach to treatment that is drug-free and non-invasive, with guaranteed wellness.”
It is with a vision to provide patients with the highest level of osteopathic care in the Sultanate of Oman that Dr Mudathir opened the British Osteopathy Centre (BOC) on December 1, 2020, after a 24-year stint in the United Kingdom.
Following his early schooling in Oman, Dr Mudathir moved to the UK where he completed his high school and got a degree in nutrition from the University of Leeds, before attaining his master’s in the same field at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle.
His interest in sports medicine grew during his professional sporting career, when he competed at national and international levels in basketball, water polo and rugby. It was during one such sporting event that he sustained a serious injury, which led to two years of poor diagnoses and treatments, before he turned to osteopathy. It was osteopathy that correctly diagnosed and formulated a treatment plan, enabling him to continue competing at an elite level of sport. Consequently, he completed a further master’s degree in osteopathic medicine at Leeds Beckett University in 2007 and gained experience.
“Even before moving back to Oman in 2016, the plan was always to open my own osteopathy medical clinic in Oman; to provide exclusive and high-end treatment for people in Oman,” says Dr Mudathir.
Explaining the need to open a centre dedicated to osteopathy, he states: “There are only two such dedicated osteopathy clinics in Oman and I felt the need to educate and promote osteopathy and its medical branches to help people here experience first-class medical care. Establishing it in the heart of the city also meant easy access for people in the capital city.”
What began with one osteopath and a receptionist two and a half years ago has grown today into a full-fledged centre that is operated six days a week by a team of nine, and hundreds of satisfied patients, besides major sporting partnerships and corporate relations, testifying British Osteopathy Centre’s strong presence in the country.
As the principal osteopathic physician responsible for consultation and treatment of patients from babies to the elderly, Dr Mudathir’s key objective is to relieve his patients of pain and complications and the usual long recovery periods following invasive surgeries. Osteopathy is a highly specific, accurate and evidence-based practice of medicine, unique in its approach in delivering medical treatment and pain therapies.
The BOC offers osteopathy, joint manipulation and cracking, personalised nutrition programmes, physiotherapy, podiatry, sports and athletic massage, exercise physiology and rehabilitation, athletic performance, personal training, dry needling and Pilates.
Highlighting the growing awareness to osteopathy in Oman, Dr Mudathir reveals that more people are seeking such treatment despite the popularity of traditional modalities that require medication and surgeries in overcoming illnesses/diseases. “Osteopathy is highly promoted, especially since the establishment of my clinic here in Oman. It’s becoming a really big player in the osteopathy industry; helping people on a different scale — non-surgically —is what most want at the moment,” he explains, pointing out that people want to do things naturally as opposed to going down the surgical route.
While the basic premise behind osteopathy is a non-invasive approach to treatment, it does not rule out the need for surgery if things go beyond its precincts. “In some cases, we do promote surgery if necessary. This is not to say that we cannot help everybody; we can, but it has to be the last option due to the risk factors involved with surgery.”
Pointing out that there are several other treatment modalities available for patients, he states that people seek osteopathy as it offers a holistic approach, whereby the root cause is always addressed to ensure permanent recovery of pain syndromes.
However, people commonly assume that osteopathy is meant for the elderly, which Dr Mudathir says is a misconception. He states: “People think we see a lot of elderly patients, but they are our smallest group. We see newborn babies, children and teenagers; we see adults, both male and female, and also the very elderly. We also see elite athletes at our sports medicine department. We treat people who have had strokes, neurological and breathing disorders, heart issues, diabetic patients… We see a lot of people who have tried so many other modalities that haven’t helped, including surgery… We should, however, be the first point of call, as we do consultations as well and are able to effectively diagnose before starting the treatment.”
The centre is equipped to treat everything from low back pain, neck pain, sciatica, disc injuries, knee problems, frozen shoulder, hip pain, ankles and foot, ligament sprains and tears to visceral conditions such as colic in babies, sleep difficulties, headache and migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation and breathing difficulties, among others. While most treatments are with hands-on manipulation techniques, the treatment modalities also include laser therapy, ultrasound therapy, shock-wave therapy, heat-and-ice therapy, in-body machine, gym physiotherapy and decompression therapy.Throwing the spotlight on wellness and osteopathy, Dr Mudathir states: “Osteopaths treat the patient, not the symptom or the condition; every treatment is unique to the patient as there are so many factors that determine rehabilitation — from age, sex, environmental and circumstantial factors to the health of that patient. At BOC, we therefore provide unique treatment plans for the recovery of patients.”