- It is an evolution in the practice of medicine. By addressing the root causes of symptoms, it aims to heal patients and ensure they stay well.
- Functional Medicine was started by Dr Jeffrey Bland 30 years ago. He and other conventional doctors of different disciplines, felt they weren’t doing enough for their patients. They wanted to see their patients, not only better, but thriving. In 1991 they formed the Institute for Functional Medicine.
- Western allopathic medicine had scientific studies to back it up, but for the ancient practices of Ayurveda and Chinese medicine and many other holistic and alternative therapies – there was no mechanistic framework, even though the studies had been done. These Functional Medicine doctors sifted through thousands of those studies, grouped them into similarities and came up with seven interconnected systems, called a *matrix – and this is where symptoms are mapped, to get a full picture of the illness.
- Functional Medicine doesn’t just tell you what disease you have, it asks WHY you have the symptoms and makes a thorough investigation to get to the causes. Addressing the root causes of urgent conditions often solves many problems at once.
- It treats the patient as a whole person, acknowledging that everyone is unique, with their own complex, and interwoven set of influences. It takes into account both internal (mind, body and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect total functioning.
- Functional Medicine doctors want to know all about you – the health of your parents; whether you had a natural birth and were breast fed or not; what childhood illnesses you had; any major events in your life and what impact they had on you; what you eat, how you exercise or move; how you sleep; manage your stress; the quality of your relationships and your worldview.
- Doctors collaborate with, and empower patients – looking at their history, together with the environmental and lifestyle factors that may be contributing to particular health issues. They pass the patients on to a Health Coach to assist them with their prescribed lifestyle changes.
- It promotes healthy lifestyle habits for the treatment and prevention of disease rather than chronic medication to manage it.