Functional Medicine
Dr. Ferris practices functional medicine. A Naturopathic physician's training is essentially that of a functional medicine provider. This term has recently been embraced by conventionally trained healthcare practitioners who have begun to think about health care in a new and exciting way.
According to the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), “the functional medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of disease and promote optimal wellness.”
Functional Medicine defines a movement of personalized medicine that focuses on prevention and underlying physiology versus symptoms for serious chronic disease. By analyzing and establishing a baseline physiology through history, medical labs and integrative diagnostics, practitioners can determine customized treatment strategies to bring into function an optimal state of health, as well as assess patient progress to treatment protocols.
Functional medicine is grounded and guided by the following principles:
Biochemical individuality describes the importance of individual variations in metabolic function that derive from genetic and environmental differences among individuals.
Patient-centered medicine emphasizes “patient care” rather than “disease care”
Dynamic balance of internal and external factors.
Web-like interconnections of physiological factors – an abundance of research now supports the view that the human body functions as an orchestrated network of interconnected systems, rather than individual systems functioning autonomously and without effect on each other.
Health as a positive vitality – not merely the absence of disease.
The Functional Medicine approach
Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.
The Functional Medicine Approach
Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.
Photo credit: Institute of Functional Medicine
As the graphic illustrates, a diagnosis can be the result of more than one cause. For example, depression can be caused by many different factors, including inflammation. Likewise, a cause such as inflammation may lead to a number of different diagnoses, including depression. The precise manifestation of each cause depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle, and only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.