What is Functional Medicine?
Functional medicine, or functional medicine in Swedish, is a medical field that strives to treat and identify underlying causes of disease rather than just suppress symptoms. Patients and practitioners work in a therapeutic partnership.
Functional medicine uses precision medicine, which means that the patient’s treatment plan is individual and patient-centered.
The body is seen as a whole, a network of relationships and not separated organs. Imbalances in the body can therefore drive ill health. To find these imbalances, it is important to look deeply into the patient’s inner health. This is done most easily by looking at factors that have a direct impact on our health such as nutritional status, diet, sleep, physical activity, biochemistry and genetics. Even mental and emotional factors can drive illness and are important to work with.
We ask why illness occurs?
Functional medicine always seeks to optimize health. Great focus is on preventing the onset of disease by working preventively.
Functional medicine asks the question "Why does disease occur? "". . The treatment is primarily focused on answering the question. "What does this patient have for illness?" Once a diagnosis is established, a treatment plan is developed based on the diagnosis.
Doctors in Functional Medicine focus on answering the question Why and how did the patient develop disease? and seeks to restore health by setting up a treatment plan to address the causes of disease.
Why Choose Functional Medicine?
Individual and patient-centered
Functional medicine determines how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing the root causes of the disease for each individual.
The functional medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered and science-based approach that allows patients and practitioners to work together to manage the underlying causes of disease and promote optimal health.
It requires a detailed understanding of each patient’s genetic and biochemical factors and lifestyle factors. This data is used to create customized action plans that lead to improved patient outcomes.
System-based
Functional medicine uses a system biological approach. The latest research shows that what happens in the body is linked to a complex network of relationships.
The body works as a whole instead of separate organ systems. Understanding these conditions allows us to look deep into the function of the body.
3. Lifestyle-oriented
Research shows that 80 percent of chronic diseases have lifestyle-related causes and that 67 percent of all men and 50 percent of all women in Sweden have at least one unhealthy lifestyle habit.
In healthcare, most chronic diagnoses are treated according to a model adapted to emergency care where the treatment is primarily drug-oriented. Functional medicine works to attack the cause of chronic disease.
The focus is primarily on changing the patient’s diet and lifestyle habits to optimize health, and if necessary, supplements and medications are printed.
4. Patient-driven
In functional medicine, treatment is patient-driven. The relationship between the patient and the physician is seen as a therapeutic collaboration in which the role of the physician is to give the patient knowledge and understanding of their health.
The patient is responsible for his or her own health and the healing process comes from the patient himself, not from the doctor.
5. More time with the patient
By dealing with root causes, rather a symptom, it takes time to orient in each patient’s complex state. In functional medicine, at least four times more time is spent at a new visit compared to a health centre.
You take the time to listen to the patient’s medical history and guide the patient during the process of improving their health.
