Holistic Medicine

Our practice adheres to the principles of Holistic Medicine as defined by the American Holistic Medical Association:

1. Optimal Health is the primary goal of holistic medical practice. It is the conscious pursuit of the highest level of functioning and balance of the physical, environmental, mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of human experience, resulting in a dynamic state of being fully alive. This creates a condition of well-being regardless of the presence or absence of disease.
2. The Healing Power of Love. Holistic health care practitioners strive to meet the patient with grace, kindness, acceptance, and spirit without condition, as love is life’s most powerful healer.
3. Whole Person. Holistic health care practitioners view people as the unity of body, mind, spirit and the systems in which they live.
4. Prevention and Treatment. Holistic health care practitioners promote health, prevent illness and help raise awareness of dis-ease in our lives rather than merely managing symptoms. A holistic approach relieves symptoms, modifies contributing factors, and enhances the patient’s life system to optimize future well-being.
5. Innate Healing Power. All people have innate powers of healing in their bodies, minds and spirits. Holistic health care practitioners evoke and help patients utilize these powers to affect the healing process.
6. Integration of Healing Systems. Holistic health care practitioners embrace a lifetime of learning about all safe and effective options in diagnosis and treatment. These options come from a variety of traditions, and are selected in order to best meet the unique needs of the patient. The realm of choices may include lifestyle modification and complementary approaches as well as conventional drugs and surgery.
7. Relationship-centered Care. The ideal practitioner-patient relationship is a partnership which encourages patient autonomy, and values the needs and insights of both parties. The quality of this relationship is an essential contributor to the healing process.
8. Individuality. Holistic health care practitioners focus patient care on the unique needs and nature of the person who has an illness rather than the illness that has the person.
9. Teaching by Example. Holistic health care practitioners continually work toward the personal incorporation of the principles of holistic health, which then profoundly influence the quality of the healing relationship.
10. Learning Opportunities. All life experiences including birth, joy, suffering and the dying process are profound learning opportunities for both patients and health care practitioners.

Oriental Medicine

Oriental medicine encompasses a variety of health care therapies, and is an integrative medicine unto itself. Acupuncture and herbology are the most popular treatments in the United States. Other aspects of oriental medicine include: diet, nutrition, lifestyle counseling, tai qi (martial arts/ physical exercise), tui na (pushing/grasping) which is a manual technique for the treatment of the muscles and joints, zheng gu (correct bone) which is a joint mobilization technique, cupping (gently drawing the skin into cups with suction), gua sha (stimulation of the skin by a round-edged instrument), and feng shui (environmental balance).

Oriental Medicine looks at illnesses from a different perspective than conventional medicine. The underlying principle of oriental medicine is that we have a life force that energizes all the metabolic activity in our bodies, and this life forces (often referred to as "Qi") is always moving and flowing. When qi flows unimpeded, we are healthy. When qi is blocked, we experience pain and ultimately disease. The treatment strategy is to find the areas of blocked energy, and help remove those blocks, which in turn helps the body return to its natural healthy state.

The Integrative Approach

As discussed on the homepage, integrative medicine is an extremely powerful approach in helping patients with a variety of health conditions.

The National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health defines complementary and alternative medicine as:

"A group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine."

The NCCAM also defines integrative medicine as:

"Combining mainstream medical therapies and CAM therapies for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness."

As you will read on the following web pages, we offer many integrative health services from both eastern and western philosophies, bringing them together resulting in a unique treatment approach. Call to day to find out how our unique approach may help you!