It is a systemic, holistic, patient-centered approach that aims to address the root causes of disease, involving both patient and doctor in a therapeutic partnership.
It involves addressing lifestyle elements, but from the perspective of the dysfunctions identified in each individual patient. In other words, lifestyle medicine is used to adjust, as precisely and individually as possible, those factors which have a significant impact on health.
Functional medicine is NOT necessarily the kind of medicine that involves various costly tests (from biological materials such as blood, urine, stool, saliva, hair) – they are optional, not mandatory and supplements at least as expensive. The ‘philosophy’ behind this system of diagnosis and treatment involves classical, allopathic medicine done with care and skill, allowing the patient time to express themselves and open up to the doctor. The emphasis is on health, not on disease. Health is seen as the sum of the physiological parameters of the functions that keep us alive, and their degree of functioning; deviation from these values is identified as dysfunction.
In other words, according to a principle from quantum physics, what you pay attention to, that is objectified. Are you paying attention to health? You optimize it. Do you focus on disease? You make it worse.
Simple.
Moreover, MF “chooses” its patients by the very fact that they choose it – seeking “something else”, through which not only to relieve their suffering, but also to understand it, mentally, causally, especially in a more fundamental way. I mean, if everything has a meaning in this world, even illness can teach us something…what is the lesson for me, what do I (also) have to learn from this experience?
So, punctually, the Therapeutica method involves:
– Thorough, careful, extensive history and clinical examination
– Checking medical records (if any)
– Checking primary health assessment questionnaires (most often one that gives data on general and metabolic status), that are completed before the consultation
– Establishing diagnostic guidelines, including some laboratory tests
– At a later stage – interpretation of the test’s results, formulation of a specific medical diagnosis and recommendations on lifestyle, nutrition, vitamin/mineral/enzyme/antioxidant requirements
– Regular reassessments, with adjustment/modulation of the factors taken into account in the previous step
Tofan Bogdan, MD