Integrative medicines role in treating illnesses

Conceptual mental exercise.What is Integrative Medicine?

Integrative medicine involves the use of appropriate healthcare professionals, therapeutic approaches and the disciplines to reach optimal healing and health. It focuses on the entire body and combines conventional medical therapy with other therapies.

Integrative medicine aims to maintain and restore the wellness and health of a person by comprehending the patient’s overall health condition, including spiritual and psychological dimensions. It also considers the patient’s biological, psycho-social., behavioral, and environmental factors.

The following are the principles that define the use of integrative medicine:

  • The practitioner and the patient are companions in the process of healing.
  • The factors that affect wellness, disease, and health are taken into account such as the body, spirit, mind, community, etc.
  • Less invasive, effective, and natural interventions are used during the healing process.
  • The practitioners take the help of the healing sciences to allow the body to respond to innate healing.
  • Good science makes good medicine which is available for new paradigms.
  • Along with the concepts of medicinal treatment, there is a broader concept of wellness and health promotion and how to prevent illness.
  • Personalized care based on the needs and conditions and circumstances of the patient.

Integrative Medicine and its Benefits

The practice of integrative medicine integrates the latest scientific medical treatment protocols with conventional medical treatments or therapies.

The benefits of practicing integrative medicine are as follows:

  • A broad approach to wellness and carethe best thing about integrative medicine is that it combines conventional medicine which is based on evidence and alternative medicine. For instance, conventional treatments for backaches are sometimes ineffective, and in that situation, your practitioner may provide you with osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) or acupuncture, an anti-inflammatory diet plan, or massage therapy.
  • Treatment of the person, not only the disease or condition – When your provider is applying integrative medicine to treat your problem, the emphasis is given on all the important factors that affect your health, be it physical, behavioral, biological, environmental, or psychosocial. So, you get an overall treatment of not just your physical body or health but also your mental health, your community, etc.
  • Creating a foundation for your overall wellness and health – We have already learned about how integrative medicine treats the overall condition of the body. Hence, it involves making a groundwork for better overall health. This kind of treatment actively addresses the nutritional status like food allergies or vitamin deficiencies, immunity systems like an inflammatory burden or gut health, environmental toxins such as occupational hazards, pesticides present in food, etc and also hormonal imbalances.
  • Prevention of future health problems before they arise – Integrative medicine is synonymous with preventive medicine. This means integrative medicine is the best treatment through which you can secure future health by learning or gaining full knowledge about your present health status and exploring ways to address the medical health issues proactively, much before they arise.
  • Integrative medicines can relate to both specialty and primary care – integrative medicinal treatment can be applied in both primary as well as specialty care such as pain management, gastroenterology, and psychiatry.

When should I go for Integrative Medicine?

People go for integrative medicine for various reasons but several studies have shown that most of them pursue it because they find integrative medicine better aligned with their beliefs, philosophies, and values regarding their life and health over the rigid and restrictive conventional medical treatments.

The customizable personal care that comes with the practice of integrative medicine is preferred by most of the patients. They feel that turning to an integrative approach will let them achieve the best health and will also enable them to maintain it. In fact, studies at Duke Integrative Medicine prove that those who take part in integrative medicine treatment experience more insightful and intense health benefits than those who do not participate in integrative medicine.

Many of the integrative medicinal treatments are not that old. They include certain herbal treatments and acupuncture as well which have been around the medicinal approach for more since ages. People are experiencing these therapies in managing pain combined with modern techniques. Scientists and health care workers find integrative medicine to be more useful since it gives positive outcomes for a variety of pain and illnesses. So, integrative medicines role in treating illnesses is going to be increasing in future for sure.

Conclusive Thoughts

We, at Proactive Wellness Centers, aim to help our patients achieve optimal health and functional efficiency one individualized plan at a time. Your health is important to us. We understand that issues around your well being can be intimidating. If you have any questions you would like to discuss with us, please feel free to contact us here today.

We’re looking forward to learning more about you!

References:

https://health.usnews.com/health-conditions/heart-health/integrative-medicine/overview

https://www.floridamedicalclinic.com/blog/5-integrative-medicine-benefits/

https://dukeintegrativemedicine.org/about/what-is-integrative-medicine/