Functional medicine is healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person, treating the mind, body & spirit synergistically, not as separate and independent entities.
FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE IS:
Patient-centered: Treatments are highly individualized based on patient needs.
Investigative: Addresses symptoms by focusing on the underlying cause of the problem, which leads to more profound and longer lasting results.
Holistic: Envisions the body as an interconnected whole that is in dynamic relationship to its environment, and recognizes the importance of these connections in health and disease.
Safe: Treatments have mild or no side effects, and other unrelated complaints often improve spontaneously.
Participatory: Patient is respected, empowered, educated and encouraged to play active role in healing process.
Integrative: Combines traditional Western medical practices with what are sometimes considered“alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet, and exercise; use of the latest laboratory testing and other diagnostic techniques; and prescribed combinations of drugs and/or botanical medicines, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, or stress-management techniques.
Restorative: Tests and treatments designed to promote optimal function, prevent and reverse disease, and improve quality of life.
Preventative: Guided by the ancient Chinese saying, “The superb physician treats disease before it occurs.”
Evidence-based: Based on the latest research from peer-reviewed medical journals, and uncorrupted by corporate and political interests.Say something interesting about your business here.
Conventional vs Functional Medicine
Conventional Medicine
In conventional medicine, there’s a doctor for every part of your body: cardiologists for the heart, gastroenterologists for the digestive system, neurologists for the brain and nervous system, podiatrists for your feet, and ophthalmologists for your eyes. Due to this siloing, conventional medicine does not look at the whole person to understand the interrelated causes underlying disease and chronic illness. Rather, it looks at symptoms associated with individual body systems in order to name a disease and find a corresponding drug. In conventional medicine, treatment decisions are often made on the basis of symptoms without any investigation into what’s causing them in the first place.
Functional Medicine
In functional medicine, we see the body as an interconnected whole, within a larger environment. We recognize that in order to treat one part of the body, all other parts must also be considered. This breaks apart artificial divisions of the body. We are not as concerned with the ultimate manifestations (aka symptoms) our clients are experiencing. Functional medicine looks at underlying phenomena (pathologies) that occur across specialties (inflammation, oxidative stress, toxicities, cellular energy problems, etc.) in order to understand the root cause of disease and find the right tools, at the right time, individualized for each person.