120 Oral Presentation Abstracts / International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine 13 (2010) 104–131

Effect of osteopathic treatment on the gastrointestinal system function of autistic

children
I. Bramati Castellarin, F. Hucklebridge, VB Patel, IP Drysdale
The British College of Osteopathic Medicine, London, England

Aim: The aim of this research is to investigate the use of visceral osteopathic techniques on the Gastrointestinal (GI) function of autistic children. Previous
studies showed that manual stimulation of the GI system may help to decrease inflammatory processes as well as aid a decrease in constipation, diarrhoea
and bloating suffered by autistic children. It may also ameliorate some of the behavioural symptoms characteristic of autism.
Methods: Our study utilised abdominal-visceral osteopathic techniques (VOT) on 26 autistic children aged 3 to 8 to investigate the possible effects of the
techniques. All the children in the study were suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms, and presented with impaired social relationship and commu-
nication, but were otherwise healthy. We applied visceral soft tissue technique to the abdomen (duodenum, ileo-caecal valve, sigmoid and pancreas areas)
and measured gastrointestinal and behavioural changes after 6 osteopathic treatment sessions, once a week for six weeks. Each session was limited to
thirty minutes.
Results: The evaluation of the study was accessed via 8 questionnaires given to the parents who were asked to grade the child's response to the technique
e.g. frequency of bowel movement, appetite eye contact and other parameters. Four questionnaires were given to the parents before initiation of the
osteopathic treatment and the other four were giving during the treatment phase of the research. Statistical analysis of the results showed improvement
(with 95% confidence interval) in the gastrointestinal symptoms of constipation (p ¼ 0.03) and flatulence (p ¼ 0.03) and also in the parameter appetite
(p ¼ 0.003). The subjects had a significant improvement in eye contact (p ¼ 0.03) one of the most noticeable social behaviour symptoms of autistic
patients. Using a related t test on the data (N ¼ 26), the results are significant at p < 0.05, for a paired matched one - tailed t test. The experimental
hypothesis has been supported, suggesting that autistic children have decreased all the parameters above mentioned after 6 session of visceral osteo-
pathic treatment. These data indicate that the use of visceral osteopathic techniques on GI function may be of benefit to autistic children.
Conclusions: This is an ongoing research where more autistic children are currently being recruited and treated using VOT. Laboratory analysis of
calprotectin in stool samples will be performed to correlate GI and behavioral symptoms to gut inflammation. The latter data will provide further support to
our hypothesis of a strong association of GI disorders in autistic children, which can be reduced using VOT.

doi:10.1016/j.ijosm.2010.07.020