Integrative Health Care
Eastern medicine meets Western medicine in a collaborative movement for your health care.
What is integrative health care?
We’re so glad you asked! Integrative health care is about providing complete, overall treatment for patients with a variety of professionals who practice in the Eastern and Western medical traditions, or as we prefer to refer to them, Allied Health and Medical professionals. The integrative care approach combines conventional medicine with complementary and alternative therapies to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms of their illness. This approach takes into account the physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual aspects of a patient, as well as their lifestyle and environmental factors.
Integrative health care brings together practitioners from different disciplines to support communication, collaboration, and coordinated care. Depending on each patient’s needs, care may draw on conventional (medical or allopathic), allied health, and holistic modalities.
A couple important definitions…
Allied Health
Allied health includes complementary health and wellness modalities such as massage therapy, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, acupuncture, nutrition consulting, and mental health supports that are not traditionally mainstays in a Western medical health care system.
Allopathic medicine
Allopathic medicine refers to what we understand as traditional medicine in the Western world. This encompasses physicians, family doctors, and other specialists who are part of our health care system.
Why integrative health care?
We believe that integrative health is the future of healthcare, one where the whole person is treated — physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
In the Western world, we often seek health care only when a problem arises. But what if we took a different approach? What if we sought general wellness support even when we felt healthy? What if we sought care that considers many factors that may contribute to our health, symptoms, injury, or illness, rather than looking at one concern in isolation?
Integrative health care brings together practitioners from different disciplines, with the patient at the centre of their care. Through communication, collaboration, education, and access to different approaches and perspectives, patients are supported in making informed choices about their health and well-being.