Functional Medicine

It is a client central approach which addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. As a functional medicine practitioner, I would spend time with my client, listen to their history and look at the interactions among genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors that can influence long term health and well-being.

It involves understanding the origins and prevention of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, and hormonal problems, and focuses on an integrative medicine approach program to include specific nutrition, supplementation if necessary, diet and exercise.

Functional medicine emphasises a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Functional medicine uses the client's story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the clients environmental inputs and his or her physiological function.

The institute for functional medicine teaches health care professionals how to apply these principles in practice through an intensive training programme called Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice.

I attended and completed the AFMCP - UK training in London in 2015.