One way to conceptualize where Functional Medicine falls in the continuum of health and health care is to examine the Functional Medicine “tree”. In its approach to a patient care module for complex, chronic disease, Functional Medicine encompasses the whole domain but concentrates on the section below Organ system diagnosis which differentiates it from the conventional medical model. Assessment and treatment first address the patient’s core clinical imbalances, fundamental physiological processes, environmental inputs and genetic predispositions rather than heading straight for the diagnosis.
Diagnosis is not excluded from the Functional Medicine model, but the emphasis is on under standing and improving the functional core of the human being as the starting point for intervention. Functional Medicine practitioners reason that scientific evidence strongly indicates that impaired physiological processes, if not corrected, lead to significant clinical imbalances in essential body systems. If left in a dysfunctional state, those clinical imbalances often progress to more significant signs and symptoms that may be the precursors or actual indicators of a disease state that can be diagnosed. Improving balance and functionality in the basic processes creates momentum towards health.
Conventional medicine normally acts either when a diagnosis can be made, or when signs and symptoms are severe enough to demand a clinical intervention. Functional Medicine practitioners certainly do intervene when a diagnosis has already been made, but they also evaluate functionality at a much earlier stage, often averting the disease outcome or its secondary effects. And, in all cases, focus on restoring balance to a dysfunctional system by strengthening the fundamental physiological processes that underline them, and by adjusting the environmental inputs that nurture or impair them. This approach leads to therapies that focus on restoring health and function rather than simply controlling sings and symptoms.
Functional Medicine could be characterized therefore as “upstream medicine” or “back to basics” –back to the patient’s life story – back to the processes wherein disease originates, -and back to the desire of health care practitioners to make people well, not just manage symptoms.
(c) 2005 The Institute for Functional Medicine. Used with permission granted by The Institute for Functional Medicine, www.functionalmedicine.org. No part of this content may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written consent of The Institute for Functional Medicine, except as permitted by applicable law."
