At its core, integrated medicine is the most thorough holistic approach to understanding and addressing the nature of health and disease. Although conventional medicine is strong in acute crisis intervention, it can do very little for successfully treating most chronic diseases or offering prevention education. Therefore, a great compliment to conventional methods is alternative medicine, which brings with it the brilliance and time-tested tradition of many cultures worldwide, and is capable of both long-term healing and prevention.
Integrative medicine is often a blending of these two approaches, offering standard conventional medicine with more naturally based methods. A combination of the following modalities is often applied in integrative healing: nutrition and lifestyle guidance, psychotherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, ayurveda, and many hands-on therapies. Integrative medicine pays special attention to the patient’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health during the evaluation and treatment.
Rather than some mysterious marauder, disease is seen as a result of how we have lived, saying that our past and present determine our future. This shift in view makes us a necessary part of the healing process. How we live, think and act, contribute to our current and future state of health.