Diagnostic Testing FAQs

Whenever you have a physical examination, your doctor is likely to perform a couple rudimentary tests to assess nerve function. You’re probably familiar with them. In one test, your doctor taps just below your kneecap with a small rubber mallet to check your reflexes. This is a basic neurological test to make sure the lines of communication between your brain and the rest of your body are working properly. Here at Restoration Healthcare, we often use a more sophisticated tool for testing the health and function of the nervous system. It’s called Balance Tracking System (or BTrackS for short), and we employ this test because we believe your nervous system deserves more than just a tap on the knee or the shine of a light into your eyes to gauge its stability. BTrackS enables us to evaluate how effectively the neurological communications network is carrying signals. If you’d like to know even more, please read: Using the Balance Tracking System to Test the Health of Your Nervous System.

ANS testing is a valuable diagnostic tool that helps us dig down to the root cause of a variety of illnesses and dysfunctions. We conduct ANS testing in our clinic primarily for three reasons: 1. To determine whether you have an illness or dysfunction that attacks the autonomic nervous system. Certain chronic conditions, including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, autoimmunity, and chronic stress, can damage the nerves of the ANS. 2. To detect early warning signs of ANS impairment even before symptoms become noticeable, so that we can identify and address issues before they cause more damage. 3. To find out why someone is not responding as well as expected to treatments for other conditions, and to guide treatment recommendations moving forward. If you’d like to know more about ANS testing at Restoration Healthcare, please read Bringing Your Autonomic Nervous System in for a Checkup, or ask for a copy of “Understanding Autonomic Nervous System Testing: A Restoration Healthcare guide to understanding the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and ANS testing.”

RightEye’s Brain Health EyeQ Diagnostic test enables us to generate markers and collect valuable data that reflect your brain health and function. Vision is thought to require the use of about 80 percent of the brain’s neural pathways. The RightEye test uses eye movement to stimulate various regions of the brain while monitoring reactions to visuals displayed onscreen. An EyeQ examination is non-invasive, pain-free procedure that takes place at our clinic. During this 15-minute exam which takes place at our clinic using special computer-based software and hardware, you simply follow and respond to objects moving on a screen — it’s as simple as playing a video game. For even more information on this diagnostic, please read: Using RightEye to Determine Brain Health.

As practitioners of functional medicine and integrative healthcare, we look at objective measures — not only to assess the underlying status of your health, but to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatments we recommend. Conventional measures of weight, temperature, and blood pressure are helpful, as are lab tests to examine blood counts, glucose and cholesterol levels, nutrient levels, and so on. In addition to these and other office and lab tests, we routinely conduct a body composition analysis using the InBody 770 — a premium, medical/research-grade body composition and body water analyzer that can fully analyze body composition in just one to two minutes. The InBody 770 also provides phase angle measurements to determine the integrity of your cells. With these phase angle measurements, we can determine the overall health and vitality of your body’s cells and monitor the effectiveness of recommended treatments. For more information on InBody , please read: Using the InBody 770 Body Composition Tool to Support Data-Driven Healthcare.

Like all medical practices should, we look at your cognitive function as an important diagnostic indicator and as a metric for monitoring improvement and evaluating treatment success. Over the course of your treatment, regular cognitive assessments provide us with valuable information that helps us with adjustments we may choose to make to your plan of care. To help us evaluate cognitive function, we use the Cambridge Brain Sciences (CBS) brain health assessment service, which measures core elements of cognitive function, including memory, attention, reasoning, and verbal abilities. Researchers and healthcare practitioners across the globe use the CBS service to assess scientifically accurate measures of cognition. The service evaluates cognitive function and brain health to keep a close tab on any changes. One or more tasks need to be completed for the assessment, with each divided into the categories of memory and reasoning. Best of all, the CBS Brain Health Assessment can be completed at home on a laptop, desktop, or tablet computer. For more information on cognitive testing using CBS, please read: Why We Use Cambridge Brain Sciences to Evaluate Cognitive Function.

At Restoration Healthcare, we are not interested in merely treating symptoms, but in restoring, hope, optimal health, and fitness, all the way down to the cellular level. Moreover, we are not satisfied with simply managing a chronic illness or disease, but also reversing its course and helping you heal any damage it may have caused. To help us root out the underlying causes of illness, we tend to run more diagnostic tests than you may be accustomed to when seeing a conventional medical practitioner. That’s because we subscribe to a simple motto of “test, don’t guess.” 

Dr. Bakman co-founded Restoration Healthcare in 2015, and has worked to define, refine, and promote an integrated medical model since 1993. His passion for — and advanced studies in — functional neurology, allows him to not only interpret lab test results and the results of your diagnostic studies, but to also pick up on the early signs of disease. With this information in hand, the rest of the medical team here at Restoration Healthcare is better prepared to craft and monitor your personalized plan of care.

Unfortunately, the health insurance companies’ billing/reimbursement guidelines do not allow testing and an office visit to be reimbursed if performed on the same day.

Here at Restoration Healthcare, we commonly see patients who report concerns about their cognitive function. Some worry that their cognitive issues may be a sign of early-onset Alzheimer’s or dementia, which is rarely the case. Far more common is an inflammatory condition resulting from a hidden infection, exposure to environmental toxins, autoimmunity, or some other underlying condition. With effective treatment, many of our patients’ cognitive functions return to normal. The cognitive testing that we offer through Creyos’ (formerly Cambridge Brain Science) brain health assessment service, is conducted in the comfort of your own home for a variety of reasons. These include COVID-19 because we believe you’re safer in your own home than most anywhere else. Secondly, the length and delivery method of the test makes the testing itself simpler to accomplish at home. It is delivered exclusively online, takes about 20 minutes to complete, leaving no need to drive all the way to our office. For more information on cognitive testing at Restoration Healthcare, please read: Why We Use Creyos to Evaluate Cognitive Function.