Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine involves understanding how to address and prevent the causes of complex, chronic disease. By moving away from the traditional disease-centred focus of practice, Functional Medicine addresses you as a whole person, rather than a set of symptoms.
Practitioners spend time getting to know their patients, listening to their medical histories and looking at the interactions between dietary, environmental and lifestyle factors and genetics that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. This highly personalised approach helps people restore and recover their health and vitality.
Why do we need it?
● There has been a sharp increase in the number of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis.
● Conventional medicine is mainly focused on acute care such as the diagnosis and treatment of trauma or illness that is of short duration and in need of urgent care, such as appendicitis or a broken leg. This approach lacks the methodology and tools for preventing and treating complex, chronic disease.
● Most physicians are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease and to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet and exercise to both address and prevent these illnesses in their patients.
How is Functional Medicine Different?
● Patient-centred care which promotes health rather than just the absence of disease.
● An integrative, science-based approach. Functional Medicine practitioners consider the complex web of interactions in the patient’s history, physiology and lifestyle that can lead to illness.
● Integrating the best approaches. Functional Medicine combines traditional Western practices with “alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet and exercise, the latest laboratory testing, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, and/or stress-management
techniques.
For more information visit The Institute for Functional Medicine
