What Is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine determines how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing the root causes of disease for each individual.
What does a Functional Medicine Practitioner do?
A functional medicine practitioner views each person as genetically and biochemically unique, which means that it treats each individual, not the disease. This approach strives to restore the normal healing functions of the body rather than just alleviating the symptoms of disease.
How is functional medicine different?
Functional Medicine is different from other medical modalities because it uses a systems biology approach to uncover what has disrupted the equilibrium in the body. This is accomplished by using the Functional Medicine Framework of the client history timeline and functional systems matrix. Furthermore, Functional medicine uses the concepts of antecedents, triggers and mediators in understanding what lifestyle patterns are keeping the client ill and unable to recover.
How does functional medicine differ from the conventional approach?
Conventional medicine treats symptoms and problem areas in isolation usually with medication. Functional medicine treats the whole body, addressing symptoms and root causes. Functional medicine uncovers why a specific person is presenting with a specific symptom and predominantly uses lifestyle factors such as sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management and mental attitude to target a unique intervention plan for each client.
What is the difference between functional medicine, integrative medicine, holistic medicine and naturopathy?
Alternative Medicine modalities such as integrative, holistic and naturopathy usually use ancient or eastern wisdom to help the body come back into balance. This might include using acupuncture, herbs, ayurvedic medicine, yoga, meditation, massage, etc.
Functional Medicine uses a specific and repetitive Framework to uncover underlying issues with a client and then prescribes an intervention plan unique to each patient which can include any and all possible medical solutions. This might include pharmaceutical medicines or surgery and can include traditional Chinese herbs or a specific diet plan. The protocol that will be formulated will have to do with client preferences, availability and urgency to reach the desired outcomes.
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