Category Archives: Integrative Medicine

University of Michigan Integrative Medicine, an interdisciplinary program, is committed to the thoughtful and compassionate integration of complementary therapies and conventional medicine through the activities of research, education, clinical services and community partnerships. As a healing-oriented approach to medical care, integrative medicine takes into account the whole person (body, mind, spirit and emotion), including all aspects of lifestyle.

The vision, mission and values of the University of Michigan Integrative Medicine (UMIM) program reflect our belief that patients and our community are best served when all available therapies are considered in concert with an approach that recognizes the intrinsic wholeness of each individual. It also reflects our belief that the best medicine is practiced in collaboration with a wide variety of healthcare professionals and with our patients.

Our vision: To facilitate healing and wellness of mind, body, heart and spirit through clinical services, research and education.

Our mission: To provide responsible leadership in the integration of complementary, alternative and conventional medicine.

Our values: To live and work in balance with the community, the environment and each other. To touch beyond our reach and see beyond our vision.

Integrative medicine is the practice of medicine that reaffirms the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by evidence and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, health care professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing.

Developed and Adopted by The Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, May 2004 Edited May 2005.

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University of Michigan Integrative Medicine Program

A study led by Qi Chen establishes the benefits of high-dose vitamin C in ovarian cancer patients. Read more >>

Nourishing the whole person -- body, mind and spirit -- and stimulating the body's natural healing response, is our mission at KU Integrative Medicine. We combine the best therapies from conventional medicine with our integrative medicine approach, to form a comprehensive system of biomedical care.

From a patient's very first visit with us, we attempt to uncover the underlying story ofthe patient'sjourney from wellness to disease. We listen. Based on our findings, we tailor a plan for each individual patient based on their lifestyle, their needs and their preferences. We consider the patient an integral part of the treatment team, and encourage patients to take control of their medical care.

Practitioners at KU Integrative Medicineinclude physicians, a naturopathic doctor, nurses, certified neurofeedback technicians and registered dietitians. We hope that you want to learn more about us, our services, and how we can help youforge a new path to healing and wellness.

Because Integrative Medicine attempts to dig deeper, very specialized lab work is often ordered. This also enables us to personalize your care and cater to your biochemical individuality.

NUTRITION: Eating healthy isthe key to feeling good and being well. Our counseling includes meal planning and supplements based on your biochemistry, lifestyle and food preferences. Let us help you create a personalized nutrition plan or sign up for a cooking class. Learn more >

NEUROFEEDBACK: You can rebalance your brain, and by doing so address stress, fatigue, pain and negative behaviors and emotions in your life. Our treatment maps your brain's activity, allowing patients to visualize its patterns and alter its function. Learn more >

INFUSION: Research shows that intravenous vitamin C at high doses, used in conjunction with chemotherapy or radiation, kills cancer cells in the early stages of the disease. We offer this additional treatment in conjunction with a patient's chemotherapy regimen. Learn more >

Last modified: May 12, 2015

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KU Integrative Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center

What is integrative medicine?

Integrative medicine is the practice of medicine that focuses on the whole person and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals, and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing.

It combines state-of-the-art, conventional medical treatments with other therapies that are carefully selected and shown to be effective and safe. The goal is to unite the best that conventional medicine has to offer with other healing systems and therapies derived from cultures and ideas both old and new.

Integrative medicine is based upon a model of health and wellness, as opposed to a model of disease. Whenever possible, integrative medicine favors the use of low-tech, low-cost interventions.

The integrative medicine model recognizes the critical role the practitioner-patient relationship plays in a patient's overall healthcare experience, and it seeks to care for the whole person by taking into account the many interrelated physical and nonphysical factors that affect health, wellness, and disease, including the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of people's lives.

Many people mistakenly use the term integrative medicine interchangeably with the terms complementary medicine and alternative medicine, also known collectively as complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM. While integrative medicine is not synonymous with CAM, CAM therapies do make up an important part of the integrative medicine model.

Because, by its very nature, the components of integrative medicine cannot exist in isolation, CAM practitioners should be willing and able to incorporate the care they provide into the best practices of conventional medicine.

For example, CAM therapies such as acupuncture, yoga, meditation, and guided imagery are increasingly integrated into today's conventional treatment of heart disease, cancer, and other serious illnessesand scientific evidence supports this approach to health and healing.

Coordinating all of the care given to a patient is a cornerstone of the integrative medicine approach. Your primary care physician should work in tandem with such practitioners as your integrative medicine physician, integrative health coach, nutritionist, massage therapist, and acupuncturist.

Developed by experts at Duke Integrative Medicine, part of the Duke University Health System, the Wheel of Health is a guide to integrative medicine and health planning that represents Duke's unique approach to integrative medicine. It illustrates nine key areas of health and wellness and underscores the interrelatedness of body, mind, spirit, and community in the experience of optimum vitality and wellness, as well as in the prevention and treatment of disease.

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Integrative medicine - US News

Weve all seen the words complementary, alternative, and integrative, but what do they reallymean?

This fact sheet looks into these terms to help you understand them better and gives you a brief picture of NCCIHs mission and role in this areaofresearch.

Many Americansmore than 30 percent of adults and about 12 percent of childrenuse health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional, medicine. When describing these approaches, people often use alternative and complementary interchangeably, but the two terms refer to differentconcepts:

True alternative medicine is uncommon. Most people who use non-mainstream approaches use them along with conventionaltreatments.

There are many definitions of integrative health care, but all involve bringing conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. The use of integrative approaches to health and wellness has grown within care settings across the United States. Researchers are currently exploring the potential benefits of integrative health in a variety of situations, including pain management for military personnel and veterans, relief of symptoms in cancer patients and survivors, and programs to promote healthybehaviors.

Chronic pain is a common problem among active-duty military personnel and veterans. NCCIH, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and other agencies are sponsoring research to see whether integrative approaches can help. For example, NCCIH-funded studies are testing the effects of adding mindfulness meditation, self-hypnosis, or other complementary approaches to pain management programs for veterans. The goal is to help patients feel and function better and reduce their need for pain medicines that can have serious sideeffects.

More information on pain management for military personnel andveterans

Cancer treatment centers with integrative health care programs may offer services such as acupuncture and meditation to help manage symptoms and side effects for patients who are receiving conventional cancer treatment. Although research on the potential value of these integrative programs is in its early stages, some studies have had promising results. For example, NCCIH-funded research has suggestedthat:

More information oncancer

Healthy behaviors, such as eating right, getting enough physical activity, and not smoking, can reduce peoples risks of developing serious diseases. Can integrative approaches promote these types of behaviors? Researchers are working to answer this question. Preliminary research suggests that yoga and meditation-based therapies may help smokers quit, and NCCIH-funded studies are testing whether adding mindfulness-based approaches to weight control programs will help people lose weight moresuccessfully.

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Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: Whats ...

What is Integrative Medicine and Health?

Integrative medicine and health reaffirm the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing.

Integrative medicine combines modern medicine with established approaches from around the world. By joining modern medicine with proven practices from other healing traditions, integrative practitioners are better able to relieve suffering, reduce stress, maintain the well-being, and enhance the resilience of their patients.

Although the culture of biomedicine is predominant in the U.S., it coexists with many other healing traditions. Many of these approaches have their roots in non-Western cultures. Others have developed within the West, but outside what is considered conventional medical practice.

Various terms have been used to describe the broad range of healing approaches that are not widely taught in medical schools, generally available in hospitals or routinely reimbursed by medical insurance.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the name chosen by the National Institutes of Health. CAM is defined as the broad range of healing philosophies, approaches, and therapies that mainstream Western (conventional) medicine does not commonly use, accept, study, understand, or make available. CAM therapies may be used alone, as an alternative to conventional therapies, or in addition to conventional, mainstream medicine to treat conditions and promote well-being.

Integrative medicine is a new term that emphasizes the combination of both conventional and alternative approaches to address the biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of health and illness. It emphasizes respect for the human capacity for healing, the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient, a collaborative approach to patient care among practitioners, and the practice of conventional, complementary, and alternative health care that is evidence-based.

According to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey:

Read the 2012 report What Complementary and Integrative Approaches Do Americans Use?

CAM is attractive to many people because of its emphasis on treating the whole person, its promotion of good health and well-being, its valuing of prevention, and its often more personalized approach to patient concerns.

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What is Integrative Medicine and Health? | Osher Center ...

Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) April 14, 2015

The ALS Therapy Development Institute announced today that it has enrolled the 100th patient in its Precision Medicine Program (PMP). This milestone marks a significant step in the program, which after today includes over 500 people interested in participating and 280 prescreened for enrollment. Nearly 200 additional people living with ALS (PALS) or healthy volunteers have been scheduled for participation before the end of the year. This program is the first of its kind to be created for ALS and includes multiple aspects unique to the field of precision medicine specifically aimed to discover and develop treatments for ALS.

The Institute is providing all participants with access to the data via a secure online portal, where they can monitor their health status by viewing changes in motion tracker and speech recording data, and track the data generated from the biological samples. Data obtained by the Precision Medicine Program will be instrumental for identification of the subtypes of ALS, as well as for the discovery and clinical development of therapies for ALS.

Each of the people enrolled in this program are true trailblazers in my opinion. Their effort through the Precision Medicine Program adds in a huge way to our already hyper-focused and data-driven efforts to develop ALS treatments. The patients and volunteers in the Precision Medicine Program are standing right there on the edge of scientific discovery together with us at the Institute as we share the goal of urgently finding ways to get at this disease in a meaningful way, said Steve Perrin, Ph.D., Chief Executive and Scientific Officer of the ALS Therapy Development Institute.

The Institute began planning its Precision Medicine Program in 2013, and announced a call for volunteers this past summer. The Institutes enrollment was boosted by the social media phenomenon, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Nearly $4 million was donated directly to the Institute, and every dollar was assigned directly to ALS research, including $1 million to the Precision Medicine Program, allowing it to expand enrollment from 25 to 300 people.

The Institute is currently working to expand the program further to include more patients and volunteers, and expects to make additional announcements regarding that in the coming months.

For more information on the 100th patient and others in the Precision Medicine Program, please visit http://www.als.net.

About The Precision Medicine Program at the ALS Therapy Development Institute: Precision medicine is an emerging field of biomedical research that aims to leverage patients genomic and other molecular or cellular data together with their clinical information to more rapidly identify potential therapies. The Institutes Precision Medicine Program seeks to gain critical new insight into the mechanisms of ALS through integrative analysis of each participating patients genetic data, obtained by full genome sequencing, and their clinical data including a combination of monthly self-reporting questionnaires, motion tracking, and voice recordings. This information will be linked to data obtained by analyzing patient-derived cells that are differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). These patient-derived cells will facilitate identification and development of better-focused ALS drug discovery screens.

About the ALS Therapy Development Institute: The ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS.net) and its scientists actively discover and develop treatments for ALS. The Institute is the worlds first and largest nonprofit biotech focused 100 percent on ALS research. Led by ALS patients and their families, the charity understands the urgent need to slow and stop this horrible disease. The ALS Therapy Development Institute, based in Cambridge, MA, has served as one of the leaders in sharing data and information with academic and ALS research organizations, patients and their families. For more information, visit http://www.als.net.

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100th Patient Enrolled in Worlds First Precision Medicine Program for ALS

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2-Sep-2014

Contact: John P. Wikswo john.wikswo@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-4124 Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine

The Annual Thematic issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine that appears in September 2014 is devoted to "The biology and medicine of microphysiological systems" and describes the work of scientists participating in the Microphysiological Systems Program directed by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and funded in part by the NIH Common Fund. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are collaborating with the NIH in the program. Fourteen of the research teams supported by the program have contributed papers and represent more than 20 institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine, Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Nortis, Inc., the University of California, Irvine, the University of Central Florida, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Texas Medical Branch, and Vanderbilt University.

Dr. John P. Wikswo, founding Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Editor of the Thematic Issue, explains in his introductory review that microphysiological systems (MPS) often called "organs-on-chips" are interacting sets of constructs of human cells. Each construct is designed to recapitulate the structure and function of a human organ or organ region, and when connected in an MPS, they may provide in vitro models with great physiological accuracy for studying cell-cell, drug-cell, drug-drug, and organ-drug interactions. The papers in the Thematic Issue describe the ongoing development of MPS as in vitro models for bone and cartilage, brain, gastrointestinal tract, lung, liver, microvasculature, reproductive tract, skeletal muscle, and skin, as well as the interconnection of organs-on-chips to support physiologically based pharmacokinetics and drug discovery and screening, and the microscale technologies that regulate stem cell differentiation. Wikswo notes that the initial motivation for creating MPS was to increase the efficiency and human relevance of pharmaceutical development and testing. Obvious applications of the technology include studies of the effect of environmental toxins on humans, identification, characterization, and neutralization of chemical and biological weapons, controlled studies of the microbiome and infectious disease that cannot be conducted in humans, controlled differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells into specific adult cellular phenotypes, and studies of the dynamics of metabolism and signaling within and between human organs.

In his commentary for the Thematic Issue, Dr. William Slikker Jr., Director of the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, writes "The goal [is] to accomplish this human-on-a-chip capability in a decade a feat somewhat equivalent to the moon shot of the 1960s and, like landing man on the moon, simulating a human being from a physiological/toxicological perspective may indeed be possible. But even if ultimately it is not, a great deal of fundamental biology and physiology will be elucidated along the way, much to the benefit of our understanding of human health and disease processes."

Dr. D. Lansing Taylor, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute, says "The Thematic Issue brings together the leaders of the field of Human-on-a-Chip to discuss the early successes, great potential and continuing challenges of this emerging field. For complete success, we must integrate advances in multiple technical areas, including microfluidics, stem cell biology, 3D microstructures/matrices, multi-cell engineering, universal blood substitutes, and a variety of biological detection technologies, database tools, and computational modeling for both single and a combination of organ systems. Success will be transformative for basic biology, physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and medicine, as well as the new field of quantitative systems pharmacology, where iterative experimentation and computational modeling of disease models and pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are central. The focus is to create physiologically relevant, robust, reproducible and cost-effective tools for the scientific community."

Dr. Danilo A. Tagle, NIH NCATS Associate Director for Special Initiatives, adds "This special issue highlights the exciting and rapid progress towards development of MPS for drug safety and efficacy testing. Much progress has been achieved in the two years of the program, and these articles describe the efforts by an outstanding group of investigators towards realizing the goal of fully integrated 10 organ systems. There are tremendous scientific opportunities and discoveries that could be had in the future utility of these tissues/organs on chips."

Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, agrees. "We are proud to publish this Thematic Issue dedicated to "The biology and medicine of microphysiological systems." Dr. John Wikswo is to be congratulated for assembling an exceptional group of researchers who are leaders in the field of MPS and the many uses of this exciting technology. MPS has the potential to revolutionize experimental biology and medicine. Because of the great importance and promise of organs-on-chips and MPS technology, it has now become a major area of emphasis for the Systems Biology category of Experimental Biology and Medicine."

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Microphysiological systems will revolutionize experimental biology and medicine

Why Integrative Medicine and Stem Cell Treatment
Dr. Michael Belich of Integrative Medical Clinics talks about Integrative Medicine and Stem Cell Treatment. For more detailed information go to http://www.in...

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Why Integrative Medicine and Stem Cell Treatment - Video

Stem Cell vs Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy for Knee Pain
http://SDIntegrativeMedicine.com San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine offers both platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy and stem cell therapy which are bot...

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Stem Cell vs Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy for Knee Pain - Video

Phoenix, Arizona (PRWEB) February 12, 2014

Top Anti-Aging doctor at Phoenix Integrative Medicine, Dr. Andrea O'Connor, is now offering the PRP Facelift. The treatment, also known as the Vampire Facelift, is highly effective at using the bodys own healing process to generate newer younger skin. For more information and scheduling call (480) 252-3799.

Traditional facelift procedures involve incisions, anesthesia and significant recovery time. With the latest regenerative medicine procedure known as the PRP Facelift, none of these things are necessary. Patients receive the procedure as an outpatient, and no incisions are needed.

For the treatment, blood is taken from the patient just like a blood draw at a lab. The blood is then spun in a centrifuge which creates a layer rich in platelets and growth factors. This concentrate is then used for the facelift procedure, which also attracts stem cells from the body. Some call the treatment a "stem cell facelift" because of this. Because it is the patient's own blood, there is minimal risk with the treatment.

A PRP facelift can help to reduce the presence of scars, wrinkles, and fine lines on the skin to allow for a more natural and more youthful look. The effects of a PRP facelift can last for over six months, and are typically able to be seen in the days immediately following the procedure.

In addition to the PRP facelift (aka Vampire Facelift or Stem Cell Facelift), Phoenix Integrative Medicine also offers Botox, Juvederm, Dysport, bioidentical hormone replacement and much more.

Those interested should call (480) 252-3799 for more information and scheduling.

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Top Anti-Aging Doctor at Phoenix Integrative Medicine Now Offering PRP Facelift Procedure