Instead of focusing on a set of symptoms and trying to match those symptoms with the right drug or treatment, functional medicine encourages greater focus on the patient. It’s not just about reducing patients to a set of symptoms but about treating the patient as a whole. That difference in approach is what sets functional medicine apart from traditional forms of patient care.
Here are five of its basic principles:
1. Every person is unique. And that uniqueness extends to our biology make-up, our genetics, our body, our ability to cope with stress, pain and illness. That’s why functional medicine treatments often revolve around encouraging the natural processes and defenses of the body. Instead of promoting invasive surgery or introducing harmful chemicals into the body, it emphasizes the need to help the body heal on its own.
2. It’s based on sound principles of science. There’s no guesswork involved here. Doctors who practice this approach use the latest technologies to help them determine the best course of action to take. Treatment plans are designed to address a person’s condition in a way that naturally helps the body heal. All aspects of a patient’s health—from medical history to long-term habits that might be sabotaging the body’s immune system—are examined, taken into consideration and filed away for future reference.
3. The body is made up of interconnected systems. That’s why functional medicine’s insistence on learning and understanding the depth of those relationships, of how one system affects another, is crucial. In understanding how systems of the body work, we can also understand how these systems can come together to help the body heal itself.
4. The body is a self-regulating unit. This means we have the capacity to make ourselves better, to heal ourselves. Functional medicine is simply tapping into that mindset. They’re looking for a way to extend that self-regulation to help patients deal with chronic illnesses and conditions.
5. Health doesn’t simply refer to a lack of illness but to the quality of one’s health and life. A lot of people believe they’re healthy just because they don’t have a cold or aren’t down with the flu. But that’s not health. Healthy means being able to do more, to have the energy to take on more, to live each day happy and full of energized wonder.
Those are 5 principles of this approach. If you’re interested to learn more, Parker Integrative Health offers services and treatments in the Denver CO area.
Want to start living healthy? Parker Integrative Health offers functional medicine treatments in the Denver CO area. Call for an appointment today!
