UNECOM faculty members Frank Willard and Jane Carreiro are featured speakers at international osteopathic meeting

UNECOM faculty members Frank Willard, PhD, professor of anatomy, and Jane Carreiro, DO, Associate Professor and Section Head Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine, recently gave invited lectures to the International Congress of Osteopathic Medicine in Potsdam Germany. The meeting, held between September 30 and October 2,  2011, brought together osteopaths and osteopathic physicians from Europe and the United States. The theme of the meeting was on the importance of the thorax in health and disease. The meeting featured lectures and workshops on the diversity of osteopathic thinking and osteopathic methods for diagnosis and treatment of somatic dysfunctions and their effects on the thorax in the parietal, visceral and cranial system.

Dr. Frank Willard gave a series of lectures and workshops on fascial relationships in the thorax and the thoracic autonomic nervous system and pain. One lecture was entitled “Anatomy of the thorax (Breathing, Circulation, Fluids)” while the second lecture was titled “Myofascial Integration (from the cranial base to the pelvis)”. The two workshops were “Fascial continuity in the thorax” and “Viscerosomatic integration in the thorax”. Following the meeting Dr. Willard spent three days in the Anatomy Laboratory at the Free University of Brussels working on specialized pediatric dissections. He then delivered a 3-day course on cranial nerves and pain to the Swiss Federation of Osteopaths in Fryeburg, Switzerland.

Dr. Carreiro gave a lecture on Osteopathic dysfunctions in the thorax entitled “Osteopathic dysfunctions in the thorax – the influence of the diaphragm for the whole body”. She also organized and participated in workshops on “The diaphragm – influence on motion and breathing”, and “Asthma and COPD”.