It is patient-centered medicine, using each person’s individual story, that is anchored by assessing core imbalances that underlie various disease states. It addresses the unique connections of environment, genetics, and lifestyle factors that influence these imbalances. It looks further at how each of these factors impact health by investigating diet, nutrition, toxin exposure, food or other allergens, water intake, exercise, trauma (physical or emotional), and physiological processes within the body.
Functional medicine looks to intervene at multiple levels to manage the complexity of chronic medical conditions to bring back into balance any core clinical imbalances. It is not a separate body of knowledge, but rather it is grounded in scientific principles and information widely available in medicine today, integrating multiple knowledge bases in order to focus on the functionality of the person at many levels.
Functional Medicine Resources:
www.ifm.org
It is healing oriented medicine that takes into account the whole person (mind, body, and spirit), including all aspects of nutrition and lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship between physician and patient as partners in this healing process. It makes use of all appropriate therapies (conventional and alternative/complementary) to facilitate a much more effective healing response from the body’s innate ability to do so.
Integrative medicine neither rejects conventional medicine nor accepts alternative therapies without a critical eye. Good medicine is based on good science. It is inquiry-driven, open to new paradigms, and always seeking high-quality evidence of safety and effectiveness. Effective interventions that are natural, less invasive, and are known to cause less side effects should be used whenever possible.
Integrative Medicine Resources:
www.aihm.org
Medical acupuncture is a combination or hybrid of eastern and western medicine. There are a variety of approaches to diagnosis and treatment, derived from both Asian and European sources. Thus, a physician acupuncturist can creatively intervene using needles in various combinations and patterns to improve energy and biochemical balance in order to stimulate the body’s natural healing abilities.
While acupuncture is often associated with pain control, medical acupuncture has much broader applications that can influence promotion of health and well-being, prevention of illness, and treatment of various medical conditions.
Medical Acupuncture Resources:
www.medicalacupuncture.org
www.hmieducation.com