Functional Medicine Clinic - A Holistic Approach to Healing

A functional medicine clinic is a clinic with special emphasis on treating the human body holistically. Basically, its practitioners order reams upon reams of non-scientific tests and whose interpretation isn't always clear, all to achieve the same end - to successfully treat the underlying cause of illness. True, functional medicine also includes some very simple, science-driven advice (e.g., healthy diets, regular exercise, enough sleep), but what it doesn't try to do is make sense of the world as we understand it - in other words, modern medicine seeks to eliminate diseases by eliminating symptoms. Holistic medicine on the other hand tries to go beyond symptom management in order to achieve prevention of disease - or, at least, to try and achieve as near to prevention as possible. If you want to get rid of your health problems, you should take both approaches.

Today's functional medicine clinics are staffed by not only physicians but also therapists and catechists, whose main role is to provide patients with an overall view of their health, and help them identify and manage their specific health problems. Unlike conventional medicine, the focus of these clinics is not to treat a single ailment but to prevent diseases through prevention. This is because unlike doctors, who are ultimately trained to diagnose and treat only a single ailment, functional medicine doctors have to learn to identify a number of common diseases, each with its own unique symptom picture, and then treat them all.

The Cleveland Clinic, for example, is one of the premier functional medicine clinics in the nation. There, doctors strive to prevent and treat everything from allergies to arthritis by keeping a close eye on the diet and fitness of patients. At the primary care clinics of this type, patients see a primary physician who screens for common conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, as well as more complex conditions such as asthma and cancer. A functional doctor london on staff even sees to it that patients are tested for nutritional status and current medical histories so that he or she knows which tests need to be run first and which may be carried out later. This results in less time wasted for the patient and a much higher chance of successful treatment.

The Cleveland Clinic's goal is to give every patient the best shot at success. That begins by seeing to it that the doctor makes himself or herself "fit" for the patient's lifestyle. According to Gerald Leo, PhD, Functional Medicine Clinic Director: "Fit is the new healthy." In order for a patient to feel good about themselves and be able to maintain their usual level of activity, it's necessary for doctors to make their patient's "fit" to a certain extent. When a person is simply "vigorous", a fit body image can sometimes be overlooked, even by the practitioner treating the patient.

To create a truly personal brand, Dr. Leo recommends developing a "purpose-oriented" brand. "Purpose-oriented" means that the brand identity is relevant to the patient's current situation and is geared toward the future. For instance, a functional medicine clinic in Cleveland might create a slogan such as "No Artificial Substances Allowed" or "We Don't Just Give a Radon Box Away." These slogans would be personalized to help the clinic's patients identify with them. Similarly, a well-known company might create a tagline like "The New Industrial Revolution Is Here" or "Your Skin Needs an Internalazer."

While lifestyle changes are important for many patients who are prescribed medications for chronic conditions, the main focus of a functional medicine clinic should be to alleviate symptoms or prevent recurrences. "You are what you eat and you are what you do," says Dr. Leo. "If you address the underlying causes of your problems, you can cure yourself." While conventional medicine has been useful in dealing with a wide range of diseases and conditions, this type of clinic looks at the problem in its primary focus: the individual. Here is a post with a general information about this topic,check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine.