Greater Gainesville will check every box for those looking to make a home in a community that promotes healthy and active lifestyle, holistic healthcare and personal well-being. Alachua County offers an abundance of integrative and holistic healthcare providers, as well as exceptional local, community-based resources for achieving the best health possible. Integrative medicine is a holistic medical discipline which takes the patient’s lifestyle into account. Medical professionals get to the root cause of disease by treating the body, mind and spirit as one whole system. Western and Eastern medicine collide to treat the whole person, rather than just the disease itself. Traditional medicine tends to fill the need for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and other health conditions.
There is often a need for alternative healthcare providers who can address health and wellness concerns using natural, holistic care in combination with Western medicine or on its own. According to the Mayo Clinic, newer terms such as complementary and integrative medicine, integrative medicine and health or just integrative medicine, have replaced the more familiar term, alternative. Today, Greater Gainesville residents turn to integrative medicine to help with cancer, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, arthritis, fibromyalgia and other conditions to better manage symptoms and improve quality of life by reducing fatigue, pain and anxiety. Medications or surgery may be the best answer for some medical conditions. However, even some medical conditions, such as diabetes, may be better managed with lifestyle changes in conjunction with medications. This is where a holistic, integrative approach to managing healthcare needs can yield even greater results.
Physical therapists, chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncturists are often affiliated with integrative medicine. UF Health Integrative Medicine (Springhill) has combined integrative medicine with the latest research and medical technology in treating the mind-body-spirit connection since 2013. The program initially began with interest from UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine to extend hospital-based yoga, massage and meditation services for patients.
Led by the first fellowship-trained integrative medicine physician in Gainesville, Irene M. Estores, M.D., UF Health Integrative Medicine continues to offer safe and effective therapies from both conventional medicine and traditional healing practices. These practices, like medical acupuncture and meditation, provide patients with an evidence-informed, non-pharmacological health plan to help achieve their goals as part of the integrative medical program.
“A holistic healthcare provider will look at all contributing physical, mental and spiritual aspects of a person and their symptom development so that they can develop a treatment plan that addresses all contributing factors,” said Dr. Melissa Cere, physical therapist, doctor of physical therapy and owner of Kinetix Physical Therapy in Haile Plantation. “Alternative healthcare solutions are sometimes needed to avoid long-term medication use, injections or even surgery,” Cere said.
Physical therapy can be the perfect answer for natural relief of musculoskeletal pain, whether it is chronic or recent onset. Kinetix Physical Therapy takes physical therapy care to the next level with state-of-the-art diagnostic testing that more accurately diagnoses the structures or movement causing pain so treatment plans are more precise. Kinetix further evaluates symptoms using musculoskeletal ultrasound, electromyographic and nerve conduction studies. When the source of pain can be clearly defined, a physical therapy treatment plan can be individualized, often yielding faster results, better outcomes and even greater patient satisfaction.
Greater Gainesville is home to an abundance of physical therapists, chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncturists. These licensed healthcare providers practice an integrative approach in the treatment and prevention of injury, stress-related illnesses and chronic pain. Even within the realm of primary care, practitioners at Celebrate Primary Care are implementing a natural, holistic approach to the prevention and management of illness and chronic disease in both the cities of Gainesville and Alachua. There are plenty of community resources in the Gainesville area to help improve nutrition, fitness and stress management.
Impact Weight Management, for example, is a locally owned company that provides health and wellness coaching to help clients achieve success with not only their weight management goals, but by forming daily habits of a long-term healthy lifestyle. Sweat Life Fitness and Zen Fitness excel in providing personalized fitness training with attention to the impact of nutrition and overall wellness to meet fitness goals. Both offer personal and group fitness training. A holistic, natural approach to the prevention of illness, injury and disease has gained enormous momentum in recent years in Greater Gainesville and the entire healthcare industry. As healthcare consumers are becoming more educated with more resources at their fingertips, there has been a shift in consumer mindset from treatment to prevention. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure –– and it costs a lot less, too.