MEDICINE OUTSIDE THE BOX
Patients Outside the Box : Let ’ s Meet Them There
by JESSICA DENNISON , MD , & MARTIN HUECKER , MD
Providing truly individualized patient care becomes more attainable every year . As patients seek education and involvement in medical decision-making , our expertise will be even more crucial to separate science from pseudoscience . We should embrace and prepare for the inevitable changes associated with big data analytics , personalized medicine and patient autonomy . The physician of the 2020s will have the ability to utilize concepts and approaches of various emerging disciplines , three of which we will present here : lifestyle medicine , functional medicine and precision medicine .
Lifestyle Medicine
The specialty of Lifestyle Medicine ( LM ) originated in late 2003 and now has the American College of Lifestyle Medicine ( ACLM ) and American Board of Lifestyle Medicine ( ABLM ). A 2010 JAMA publication brought the idea of LM to a mainstream audience . 1 The paper presented physician competencies for LM : leadership , knowledge , assessment skills , management skills and use of office and community support . But the specialty ’ s simple efficiency comes in the six lifestyle interventions that form the fundamental approach of LM : nutrition , sleep , exercise , ( avoidance of ) substance use , stress management and social connection . The ABLM board prep handbook points out that 80 % of all premature deaths stem from just three lifestyle factors : tobacco use , poor diet and lack of physical activity .
Lifestyle Medicine differentiates itself from other nonmainstream disciplines . Complementary and Alternative Medicine ( CAM ) typically denotes alternative approaches pursued either with ( complementary ) or in place of ( alternative ) conventional medicine . Preventive medicine focuses on population wide initiatives , which
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