What Is Functional Medicine?
What Is Functional/Integrative Medicine?
Functional/Integrative Medicine is medicine done right. It is personalized, individualized, patient-centered medicine that asks “why?” instead of “what?”. It is 21st Century medicine in which the goal is to identify the root-cause of the patient’s symptoms, not name the symptoms with a diagnosis.
Functional/Integrative medicine is “systems medicine”, instead of “symptoms medicine"". Perhaps Functional/Integrative Medicine is best explained by contrasting it with Conventional Medicine.
Functional/Integrative Medicine is medicine done right. It is personalized, individualized, patient-centered medicine that asks “why?” instead of “what?”. It is 21st Century medicine in which the goal is to identify the root-cause of the patient’s symptoms, not name the symptoms with a diagnosis.
Functional/Integrative medicine is “systems medicine”, instead of “symptoms medicine"". Perhaps Functional/Integrative Medicine is best explained by contrasting it with Conventional Medicine.
- Where Conventional Medicine asks, “What’s the diagnosis?” Functional/Integrative Medicine asks, “Why is the body not working, not functioning the way it was designed to work?”
- Where Conventional Medicine asks, “What is the treatment for this disease for these symptoms, for this diagnosis?”, Functional/Integrative Medicine asks, “How do we best restore optimal function?”
- Where Conventional Medicine leans predominantly on prescription medications, Functional/Integrative Medicine aims to restore optimal function more naturally – correcting nutritional deficiencies, restoring hormonal imbalances, minimizing immune stressors, eliminating food hypersensitivities, and so on.
- Where Conventional Medicine treats each body system in isolation, Functional/Integrative Medicine recognizes the intricate, web-like interconnections linking everything together.
- Where Conventional Medicine tends to treat all patients with a given diagnosis the same way, Functional/Integrative Medicine tailors a specific treatment plan to each individual, recognizing that everyone’s physiology, biochemistry, and genetic predisposition is unique.
- Where Conventional Medicine focuses almost exclusively on the physical body, Functional/Integrative Medicine recognizes and addresses the complex inter-relatedness of body, mind, and spirit.
