Building bridge between the craniofacial treatments and functional medicine
IFUNA is a worldwide community of healthcare practitioners who believe that in order to restore craniofacial functional balance, we need to work together as a team.
IFUNA is an international association that connects all of the different specialties that comprise an interdisciplinary craniofacial team.
IFUNA is the leader in establishing new standards in the diagnostics, documentation, and communication of CRANIOFACIAL FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE.
The idea that malocclusion is an isolated, genetically determined structural malformation has proven to be false. Over the last 100 years, orthodontic medicine has been unable to provide an answer for the standardization in diagnosis and treatment planning for this issue. In addition, so far we have also been unable to give answers about the stability and side effects of treatment.
Epigenetics, sleep medicine, orofacial myofunctional therapy research, and healthcare statistics all suggest that malocclusion is part of a much bigger picture. The actual status of the teeth and jaws are a reflection of the overall functional imbalance of the patient.
Therefore, if we want to treat our patients with the least amount of side effect —thereby achieving not only a nice smile but also all of the associated health benefits—we have to understand and follow biological principles. We should address not only dental problems but all of the other associated factors, like breathing, sleep, oral posture, as well as head, neck, and body posture. Consequently, we have to form an interdisciplinary team to address malocclusion. This is a major revelation that has been celebrated by many healthcare practitioners all over the world, but this teamwork is not as easy as we might think . There is a great need for new definitions, standardizations, and appropriate communication across all members of the functional medicine team.
IFUNA is proud to be the catalyzer of this movement
This is a great opportunity that we can define the future of craniofacial medicine and healthcare. Join IFUNA today and be part of this movement. There are no limits on the specialties that we accept. We welcome every practitioner who wants to be part of a functional medical team and aligns with the mission of IFUNA. Let’s shape the future of medicine together.
International Functional Association (IFUNA) is a non-profit international organization that disseminates the concept of craniofacial functional medicine. This concept is based on the revelation that all chronic diseases have multifactorial origin, so the only ethical and causal medical approach is a team treatment.
We believe that this is in the patient’s best interest that instead of an unidisciplinary symptomatic treatment delivered by a specialist of one medical field, the appropriate treatment is an interdisciplinary teamwork.
Dentists, orthodontists, ENT specialists, bodyworkers, orofacial myologists, speech therapists have discovered that they need to collaborate. Over time we all realized that the interconnectedness of our problems in the craniofacial field goes even further. The local problems are just local manifestations of a global health imbalance. IFUNA’s mission is to help specialists to find collaborative colleagues, to find solutions for the challenges in teamwork in all aspects, including finding best practices, communication, patient motivation and legal, educational challenges.
We are dedicated to introduce standards in the diagnosis, documentation and team communication. We also want to bring the latest scientific and technological developments to our members. IFUNA wants to bring specialties into groups and to bring craniofacial groups and team treatment into functional medicine. We build bridges between specialties and also open to collaborate with other associations with the same mission. Besides the international activity we also support local study groups and encourage to found national IFUNA societies that can enforce the standardization, education.
IFUNA is open to any specialty. There is no limitation. We need every specialty that can help to improve the functional patient care.
We are convinced that the future of medicine is functional, holistic and so integrative. We are also convinced that this new medicine will also have a significant role in prevention.
IFUNA organizes annual conferences and publishes newsletters. IFUNA will also run official courses that are intended to introduce fundamentals of the craniofacial functional teamwork and different functional techniques.
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