What Is Functional Health and Wellness?

What if your doctor focused on you as a whole person, and didn’t just focus on isolated symptoms?  What if your doctor did an exam and spent time listening to your story, considering the genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that influenced your long-term health or chronic illness?  What if your doctor worked with you in a therapeutic partnership, searching with you for the underlying causes of your problems?  What if your doctor treated you as an individual and worked with you, to improve your unique expression of health and wellness?  What if your doctor used a systems-oriented and evidence-based approach for your healthcare needs, for 21^st century healthcare?

This is Functional Health and Wellness.

If you think of the branches and leaves of a tree, they are a little like our symptoms.  If the leaves are not healthy, we might think that the problem is in “the leaves”.  But, the health of the leaves comes from within the tree, and from the roots of the tree.  A good arborist looks at the changes in the leaves and asks about what is happening within the trunk of the tree and the health of the root system.  Healthcare practitioners should be like good arborists, looking for and addressing the root causes of our signs and symptoms.