Integrative medicine combines the best aspects of Western medicine, and the best aspects of preventative and alternative therapies. Integrative medicine is a movement, trying to restore the focus of medicine on health and healing, and away from disease and symptom management. Integrative providers consider every facet of health and disease and combine the best, proven forms of treatment to address all aspects of a patient’s wellbeing; body, mind, and spirit.
Orleans Integrative Medicine is a leader in the health community of Orleans. It fuses the disciplines of Family Medicine, Natural Medicine, Manual Medicine, and Pharmacology for truly holistic, patient-centered care.
The Defining Principles of Integrative Medicine
- Patient and practitioner are partners in the healing process
- All factors that influence health, wellness, and disease are taken into consideration, including mind, spirit, and community, as well as the body.
- Appropriate use of both conventional and alternative methods facilitate the body’s healing response.
- Effective interventions that are natural and less invasive should be used whenever possible.
- Integrative medicine neither rejects conventional medicine nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically.
- Good medicine is based in good science. It is inquiry-driven and open to new paradigms.
- Alongside the concept of treatment, the broader concepts of health promotion and the prevention of illness are paramount
- Practitioners of integrative medicine should exemplify its principles and commit themselves to self exploration and self-development
- Services provided are based on individualized care and not a cookie cutter, algorithmic approach nor a walk-in, walk-out clinic.
- Adapted from Arizona University, Faculty of Integrative Medicine