Behavioral Medicine & Research Center

Integrative Medicine

 

Integrative medicine seeks to restore and maintain health and wellness across a person’s lifespan by understanding the patient’s unique set of circumstances and addressing the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect health.  Through evidence-based personalizing care, integrative medicine goes beyond the treatment of symptoms to address all the causes of an illness. In doing so, the patient’s immediate health needs as well as the effects of the long-term and complex interplay between biological, behavioral, psychosocial, and environmental influences are taken into account.

 

Integrative medicine is not the same as alternative medicine, which refers to an approach to healing that is utilized in place of conventional therapies, or complementary medicine, which refers to healing modalities that are used to complement allopathic approaches. If the defining principles are applied, care can be integrative regardless of which modalities are utilized.

​

Integrative medicine is grounded in the definition of health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” 

​

​

Functional Medicine Mental Health

​

Functional Medicine has been brought to the forefront thanks largely to the need for a person-centered care model rather than the disease-centered care model conventional medicine has long embraced.  Pioneered by the Institute for Function Medicine (IFM), Functional Medicine has come to be defined as the care model which asks how and why illness occurs; restoring health by addressing the root causes of disease for each unique person.

​

The IFM states, “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."

​

This care model relies on understanding of each patient’s genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors to inform personalized treatment plans. This increases the likelihood of successful outcomes for the patient.

​

​

Precision Medicine and Mental Health

 

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), precision medicine is "an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person." This approach will allow doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people. Although the term "precision medicine" is relatively new, the concept has been a part of healthcare for many years. For example, a person who needs a blood transfusion is not given blood from a randomly selected donor; instead, the donor’s blood type is matched to the recipient to reduce the risk of complications.

​

We offer this approach to our patients seeking integrative care and in need of genetically based medication management and/or have experienced adverse interactions or side effects from your prior medications. As advances have been made in genetic testing, it has become possible to target medications and dosing to each person based on their genetic predispositions. 

​

We partner with functional and precision medicine laboratories to provide you with right medication for your genes based on research and your lab results.

​

Precision Mental Health is the evidence-based practice of prevention and disease treatment that targets a person based on individual variables such as genes, environment and lifestyle.  As new understandings of the genes that lead to various mental health conditions and substance use disorders are found, Precision Mental Health works to translate the newest research into actionable treatments.

​​

Examples of diagnoses that can benefit from Precision Mental Health include Eating Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, and Depression.

​

Cycles of Care

​

Your Care Team specialists meet frequently to review your progress and coordinate care. Examples of our Cycle of Care models for Anxiety & Depression, Pain Management, Cardiovascular Disease & Diabetes and Weight Management are below. Each care plan is tailored to fit your needs.

​

​