Posted on 03/10/2023 8:18:44 PM PST by ConservativeMind
Treatment is scarce for functional neurological disorder (FND), which requires a multidisciplinary approach. A special report aims to show clinicians and institutions around the world what is needed to establish effective community treatment programs.
Functional neurological disorder, formerly called conversion disorder, involves the process whereby stress, the social environment, or early experience affects the body's biological systems. The embedding culminates in stress-system activation or dysregulation and aberrant changes in neural network function.
Patients with FND have neurologic symptoms such as limb weakness, tremors, gait difficulties, seizures, or cognitive problems that are not explained by traditional neurological disorders.
As many as a fifth of children and adolescents seen in pediatric neurology clinics are found to have FND. An estimated 63% to 95% of these patients can fully recover if they receive prompt diagnosis and proper treatment.
Unfortunately, many children with FND do not receive the care they need. Kasia Kozlowska, MD, Ph.D. and colleagues explain the scarcity of treatment is global.
Dr. Kozlowska and her colleagues describe the elements of a biopsychosocial mind–body program intervention they designed that has been successful for managing FND in children and adolescents.
The authors say that although care is personalized, their interventions for FND always have seven elements: prompt medical/neurological assessment and diagnosis by a physician; triaging the referral for a holistic (biopsychosocial) assessment; a holistic, biopsychosocial assessment of the child and family; co-constructing a formulation with the child and family to identify factors that contribute to and maintain the child's symptoms; assembling a personalized treatment plan; implementing the plan; and building resilience and preventing relapse.
The article describes each of these elements in detail.
Most health care professionals working in pediatrics can easily add an FND-informed skill set to their current clinical practice, Dr. Kozlowska's group notes.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
“Functional” is another way of saying psychosomatic! These are not real diseases but the patient sub-consciously is bringing them to life though no directly on purpose. There is no physical underlying disease is what this term means!!!
It is a mental and emotional issue that can become capable of chronically affecting the body, and in that regard, not unlike anorexia, bulimia, and other mental issues.
Autism Spectrum Disorder May Be Highly Prevalent in People with Functional Neurological Disorders
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/1/299
Abstract
Recent observations suggest that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) co-occurs in people with a functional neurological disorder (FND), but little systematic data are available on the relationship between FND and autism. The study aimed to assess the self-reported autistic traits via a standardized questionnaire and the prevalence of previously diagnosed ASD among people with FND and their 1st-degree relatives. We performed a survey of members of the patient organization FNDHope, using a self-completed questionnaire for screening for autistic traits and ASD: the adult autism subthreshold spectrum (AdAS spectrum).
There were 344 respondents diagnosed with FND with a mean age of 39.8 ± 11.6 years (female sex 90%). Eight per cent of respondents volunteered a previous diagnosis of ASD, and 24% reported a 1st-degree relative with a formal diagnosis of ASD, mostly their children. We found that 69% of respondents had scores in the AdAS spectrum indicating a clinically significant ASD and 21% indicating autistic traits. Further studies are needed to provide more evidence regarding the prevalence of ASD in people with FND and how this may influence the aetiology, treatment selection and prognosis.
Keywords: functional neurological disorders; autism spectrum disorder; prevalence; autistic traits; co-occurrence
1. Introduction
Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a common neurological condition where the primary problem appears to be a genuine lack of voluntary access to movement and/or sensation, despite normal basic neurological function. People with FND most commonly present with abnormalities of movement control (e.g., weakness, speech difficulties, tremor and dystonic posturing), sensory and cognitive disturbances or attacks that resemble epilepsy (dissociative seizures/non-epileptic attacks). This frequently causes disability and a poor quality of life [1], and most people remain with symptoms in the long term [2]. Females are significantly more affected than males (2–3:1) in children and adults [3,4]. The symptom onset is usually in middle adulthood (mean age is 40 years [5]) but can affect children as young as six and older adults [6,7].
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