During a time when more people have more specialists, medications and health problems than ever before, Geri Brewster's new Westchester Center for Holistic Families deals with the health and wellbeing of families.

Brewster, who is a registered dietician, a certified dietician nutritionist and who has a master's degree in public health nutrition, is all about clearing up nutritional confusions and finding solutions for families struggling through overwhelming times.

When things get out of hand for people who are juggling prescriptions from several doctors and Internet advice, Brewster seeks to provide a holistic, integrative approach that is not only calming and reassuring, but productive as well. It is a "let's look at everything and make sure that all the basic needs are covered" technique, she says.

Brewster has been in practice for more than 20 years and is results driven with focus on peoples' long-term conditions. "I always tell a client that I am more concerned with where you are a year from now than where you are a month from now."

According to Brewster, it is easy for people to make short term changes, while permanent lifestyle changes are the harder part. The changes that she speaks of are dietary alterations that she, and an extensive amount of literature, assert are crucial to a person's health.

Through holistic thinking and nutritional manipulation, Brewster tries to target symptoms and side effects that certain traditional treatments may ignore and cause.

"Many children being treated for attention deficit hyperactive disorder also have secondary issues such as sensory integration issues which may contribute to selectiveness in dietary choices," she says.

In an attempt to be inclusive, Brewster requires patients to provide complete medical-nutritional histories and analyzes concerns that reach as far back as early childhood. She reviews medical laboratories (such as cholesterol, liver function and blood count), requires a three-day food record, examines sleep habits, and studies fluid intake and daily exercise. After identifying problems, or following the guidance of a referred patient's doctor, Brewster sets up some primary and secondary nutritional objectives. These objectives are individualized and depend on a wide variety of factors; there is no pre-typed diet list.

Although Brewster does recommend and supply supplementation in certain cases, supplements are used as a "gentle way of expanding [a patient's] food intake to help cover all of their nutritional needs until they can attain and maintain a more healthful intake." Supplements can be like medication; they give short term assistance while the patient can learn different long term strategies.

Brewster knows that asking someone to change eating habits is not a simple request. "I get the psychology behind [changing your diet], it's one of the hardest, most threatening things to do." However, patient after patient, Brewster says she sees the same positive results.

Overall, Brewster wants "to make things easy and convenient for people." She hopes to sit down with "a nice, practical, grounded approach" and "come up with something that will change your whole big list of symptoms."

Brewster shares her office, located at 491 Lexington Ave., with her former Center for Health and Healing colleague Dr. Stephen Cowan, a developmental pediatrician.