Oftentimes “wellness” gets confused with “functional medicine” and are thought to mean the same thing. While they both have the same goal to get the patient to their ultimate health status, functional medicine takes a more data and science-driven approach.

Wellness is a more umbrella term that is broader than the specificity of functional medicine. Certified functional medicine health coaches, like Dr. Danielle Litoff, DPT work with their patients to find the root cause of the issues they are experiencing and then build a custom plan using nutrition, hormones, supplements, exercise and lifestyle changes to get them back to health. Functional medicine often involves hormone and blood testing that only a certified professional can order, interpret and put into action,

A wellness coach could be anything from a personal trainer to a nutritionist or a yogi. The skillsets and expertise have a wide range of competency specialization. When you work with a functional medicine health coach, you know you are going to get a professional whose ultimate goal is to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms, and who will be an encouraging authority to keep you on track.