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Written by Dr. Ícaro Alves Alcântara
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is “a state of physical, mental and social well-being in the absence of disease or infirmity”. This means that, in order to be considered healthy, an individual needs to be well not only in their body-mind, but also in balance with their surroundings, without signs and symptoms of pathologies.
There are people going around saying that “INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE” is an improper label, exploited commercially and sensationalistically by many and that, because it is not a “medical specialty recognized by the CFM-AMB”, it should not be publicized...
Yeah... I guess they'd better warn the respected Albert Einstein Hospital about that: click here
Integrative medicine is a way of working, a concept, a philosophy, in which the health professional involved goes far beyond diseases and medicines and seeks, above all, to promote multidisciplinary care and INTEGRAL attention for the patient (and not just divide them up into isolated sets of organs and treat them in a segmented way), and make them really take responsibility for their health by optimizing their healthy lifestyle habits, promoting real prevention and related practices. In other words, the medicine of the future, which is really interested in the patient and is more effective for their health, will necessarily be more integrative, and anyone who doesn't put their prejudices aside and keep up to date will be left behind and still talking rubbish.
The definition above makes it clear: it is very difficult to be and stay healthy. And it's even harder to recover your health when it's been damaged. In this respect, in addition to individual effort and adaptation, the vast majority of the time professional advice is needed, usually from doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, physiotherapists and related health professionals.
However, if health is a holistic and integral concept, as the WHO itself states, it presupposes understanding and caring for phenomena related to the whole individual. In other words, if there is no such thing as “partial” health, it seems too simple and therefore inappropriate to try to fragment the individual into sets of organs and systems in order to treat them. If one part is out of balance, the whole human being is or will be out of balance and therefore ill.
Traditional (“allopathic”) enanthropathic medicine is sometimes confused between the many technological advances and the excessive specialization of those who practice it, while at the same time it has lost track of the individual as a whole. As a result, it often fails or gives rise to iatrogenesis, symptoms or even illnesses resulting from mistaken medical practice. For example, stomach pains caused by anti-inflammatory medication, spikes in blood pressure caused by nasal decongestants, addiction caused by tranquilizers, among others.
For all these reasons, more and more people are looking for more comprehensive, natural and less aggressive alternatives in their quest for health. And among the many options in this regard, Integrative Medicine has emerged.
CONCEPT
Integrative Medicine is not a medical specialty recognized by the Federal Council of Medicine or any other health regulatory body. Also known as Holistic Medicine, it is just a label given to a set of health practices based on the approach of the individual as a whole. In other words, Integrative Medicine is practiced by a doctor (or trained health professional) who:
He tries to analyze all the signs and symptoms of his patient, paying attention to the possible relationships between them and treating them, whenever possible, in their entirety;
It uses various forms of diagnosis, treatment and follow-up for the benefit of its patients, whether natural or not, allopathic or not;
It aims to restore and maintain mental and bodily well-being through its practices and guidelines;
It teaches and demonstrates the importance of adopting healthy lifestyle habits in order to recover, achieve and maintain health.
SCOPE
In an Integrative Medicine consultation, every sign or symptom reported is important, even if it doesn't seem to be or seems unrelated to the others. This is because they are all used so that the practitioner can build up a complete picture of their patient and thus try to treat them without neglecting important complaints. For this reason, consultations usually last a long time and involve a lot of input from the patient, who talks a lot during the consultation, trying to detail their signs and symptoms as much as possible.
It's worth noting that “allopathic” medicine is also used, as far as necessary. If the case in question requires it, tests are requested, specialist opinions are obtained and prescriptions are made along traditional lines. Integrative Medicine, therefore, aims to join forces for the benefit of the patient and their health and not compete with any form of conduct or treatment in force. In practice, it complements “allopathic” medicine (specialized and segmented), making it possible to take a more complete view of the individual by integrating the use of various diagnostic and therapeutic lines, in association, in order to best serve the full restoration and maintenance of each patient's health.
PERSPECTIVES
For all these reasons, Integrative Medicine makes it possible for individuals to obtain and maintain health in an effective and lasting way, without giving up the progress of science and medicine, but only by associating them with practices that are less used or known in our environment, even if they are more natural, for the benefit of each patient.
And since it is based on carefully listening to all of each patient's complaints, taking all of them into account when planning their approach and treatment, it is an effective tool for promoting individual health.
Integrative Medicine is an instrument with such solid credibility that it is increasingly used all over the world, especially in developed countries such as Germany, France, the United States and Italy, among others.
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