Lifestyle medicine intensivists are physicians with the advanced skill to practice intensive therapeutic lifestyle treatment with the clinical goal of restoring health.
ST. LOUIS, Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) has announced new core clinical competencies for lifestyle medicine intensivists, a level of certification designed for physicians who demonstrate the advanced skills and knowledge to practice intensive therapeutic lifestyle treatment with the clinical goal of reversing disease and restoring optimal health. The competencies were published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
The growing field of evidence-based lifestyle medicine includes the implementation of both therapeutic and intensive therapeutic lifestyle change. While therapeutic lifestyle change treatment generally features lower dosing and more gradual shifts in behavior, intensive therapeutic lifestyle change is more immersive and uses maximum therapeutic dosing. It is closely supervised by a qualified lifestyle medicine physician who is also appropriately trained to deprescribe medications when health has improved to the point that the patient no longer needs them.
Recognition of intensive therapeutic lifestyle treatment's potential to achieve remission, or even full reversal, in many lifestyle-related chronic diseases has grown as the United States struggles with a crisis of chronic disease. Six in 10 adults have at least one chronic disease and four in 10 have at least two.
"Given the enormous need for intensive lifestyle change treatment in the U.S., it is important to clearly define the competencies that reflect the level of expertise required of physicians to provide effective, evidence-based intensive lifestyle change treatment," said John Kelly, MD, MPH, DipABLM, FACLM, the study's first author and ACLM's founder. "These competencies can help guide the education, practice, clinical training and, ideally, certification for lifestyle medicine intensivists who specialize in this care."
The competencies were developed by an expert panel with experience practicing intensive lifestyle change, building from competencies ACLM first published in 2020 when lifestyle medicine intensivists were known as "specialists." The expert panel revised the original 34 competencies identified in 2020 and achieved a consensus on a final set of 45 competencies.
Since certification by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) began in 2017, almost 2,500 U.S. physicians have become certified in lifestyle medicine as diplomates (DipABLMs). Nearly another 1,000 non-physician health professionals are certified by ACLM (DipACLMs). Being a relatively new level of lifestyle medicine certification, the number of lifestyle medicine intensivists is small but growing.
Interest in lifestyle medicine is also growing. Student-led Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups exist at 132 U.S. campuses and there are 272 lifestyle residency programs that incorporate lifestyle medicine into curricula. ACLM's Health Systems Council, which supports the implementation of lifestyle medicine into health systems, has 96 member organizations.
ABOUT ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine is the nation's medical professional society advancing lifestyle medicine as the foundation for a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery system, leading to whole-person health. ACLM educates, equips, empowers and supports its members through quality, evidence-based education, certification and research to identify and eradicate the root cause of chronic disease, with a clinical outcome goal of health restoration as opposed to disease management.
Media Contact
Alex Branch, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, 8173072399, [email protected], https://lifestylemedicine.org/
SOURCE American College of Lifestyle Medicine
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