Osteopathy is a type of alternative medicine that emphasizes manual readjustments, myofascial release and other physical manipulation of muscle tissue and bones. Practitioners of osteopathy are referred to as osteopaths.

While the national health services of some countries consider there is "good" evidence for osteopathy as a treatment for low back pain and "limited evidence to suggest it may be effective for some types of neck, shoulder or lower limb pain and recovery after hip or knee operations", there is little, or insufficient, evidence that osteopathy is effective as a treatment for health conditions "unrelated" to the bones and muscles, "such as headaches, migraines, painful periods, digestive disorders, depression and excessive crying in babies (colic)"; an explicit reference to the claims of osteopathic manipulative medicine. Others have concluded that osteopathic style manipulation "failed to produce compelling evidence" for efficacy in treating musculoskeletal pain.

Some countries mandate that osteopathic practitioners must be physicians or medical doctors. This applies, inter alia, to osteopaths in the United States: a person without a medical degree is not allowed to call him- or herself an Osteopath in the United States. Osteopaths in the United States are osteopathic physicians and practice the full scope of modern medicine.

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