I was honoured to speak at the MINDD conference again this year. MINDD is an organisation that really sets itself apart by providing incredible hands on support for parents, carers and practitioners in the area of integrative mental health management and one of the key strengths is the sense of community they’ve developed secondary to this. A key message echoed by numerous speakers was the enhanced clinical benefits for patients when a truly whole health, multi-modality approach is taken – from naturopathy to psychology, from neurology to audiology, from building biology to biological markers and so on.
And just to put the brakes on the whole ‘genes are us’ movement that is currently sweeping Australian integrative medicine, Dr. Robyn Cosford (a highly-regarded integrative GP) kicked off the whole weekend with a presentation that included a study of some of the oldest Okinawan individuals and their genetic profiles. These individuals aged well over 100 and fighting fit each possessed hundreds of genes currently thought to be associated with chronic disease: cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer. Robyn reminds us all that while genetics loads the gun it is our diet, lifestyle and environment that actually pulls the trigger!
While I was inspired by the research and insight offered by clinicians and scientists from various modalities, I was reminded again, that no one individual can be across it all and to attempt is to fail or become exhausted in the process and this of course is where the community bit comes in – we need a network of integrative individuals to refer between and support each patient & my experience this weekend suggests these events certainly build that community. Our job is to practice within our scope and know when and where these other therapies and approaches are indicated and to develop a good referral network. So many great speakers this year and this time I actually managed to sit still and enjoy some of these so I’ll be bringing you the highlights over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned! 🙂