What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is a personalized, systems-oriented approach that empowers patients and practitioners to achieve the highest expression of health by working in collaboration to address the underlying causes of disease. The primary drivers of the chronic disease epidemic are the daily interactions among an individual’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle choices. Functional Medicine addresses these underlying causes of disease and equips healthcare practitioners to help their patients manage this complex, interconnected web.
For more information about IFM, please visit https://www.ifm.org/.
Of total healthcare costs in the United States, more than 75% are due to chronic conditions. The current healthcare system is optimized to rapidly treat urgent/acute medical conditions. However, chronic lifestyle-related diseases have less successful treatment outcomes using an approach that maximizes patient throughput. What works is an individualized approach that spends time evaluating patient concerns and tailoring a comprehensive plan to address a broad range of underlying medical concerns. Functional Medicine is an innovative approach to medical care that uses the latest medical research to develop personalized care for each patient, based on his or her unique environment, lifestyle, and genes. The result is a dynamic, effective way to address chronic disease.
The expression of chronic health conditions is like the leaves on a tree. Just as one can see that the leaves are either healthy or diseased, it is known that the disease may not originate in the leaves themselves, but in the root system of the tree. Our bodies at times operate in much the same way. The expression of chronic health conditions may not be in and of themselves the problem. In fact, the “root” of a health issue may be as it is shown in the infographic of the functional medicine tree:
About The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)
IFM is the global leader in Functional Medicine. The mission of IFM is to serve the highest expression of individual health through the widespread adoption of Functional Medicine as the standard of care.
What does it mean to be a certified Institute for Functional Medicine Provider?
As an IFM Certified Practitioner of The Institute for Functional Medicine’s Certification Program (IFMCP), Jennifer Bouchard
is uniquely trained in the Functional Medicine model to identify and treat the root causes of chronic disease. In order to achieve the designation of IFM Certified Practitioner, Jennifer has completed seven training seminars and passed stringent written and case study evaluations. Jennifer Bouchard is part of an elite group of approximately 1,500 practitioners who are certified through IFM’s Certification Program.