Practical FND Management: Daily Life Hacks

FND LIFE HACKS BY FND AWARE NZ

 

Professor Jon Stone - Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and MS - looking for a treatable cause of disability

 

Professor Jon Stone - Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and MS - looking for a treatable cause of disability

What is FND or Functional Neurological Disorder? - UAB Medicine

 

Why do people get functional neurological disorders? - DR R GRUNEWALD ; Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

108,200 views Oct 1, 2021

Dr Richard Grunewald explains why people get functional neurological disorders

 

DR MATTHEW PHILLIPS (WAIKATO, NZ) ON FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS

 

11,683 views Nov 9, 2024

This presentation was made for medical students and junior doctors on Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) - one of the oldest, most misunderstood, and challenging areas in neurology. I would like to be clear - these conditions are complex, not easy to diagnose, and we still have much to learn. FND should never be used as a diagnosis of exclusion or a way to dismiss patients. A thorough workup to identify potential co-existing structural or metabolic problems is essential. Many of the most complex patients have both FND features and underlying structural, metabolic, or other organic issues - missing these is a serious mistake. When I refer to CFS, fibromyalgia, IBS etc. as “cousins” of FND, I simply mean that they frequently overlap and may share elements of abnormal brain processing (predictive perception of internal signals). This does not mean they are the same as FND, nor that they are purely or mainly psychological. Both structural and metabolic factors can play important roles, sometimes triggered by - or triggering - brain processing changes. The direction of causality likely varies between individuals. This needs more research. Last, helping people with these disorders can be very rewarding when done carefully and individually. References are on the final slide. For more on predictive processing in the brain, see: “The Integrative Brain: Functional Units in Predictive Processing” https://t.co/CmHLPJhYWv Sincere regards, Matt.

FND EXPLAINED CLEARLY - RHESUS MEDICINE

FND EXPLAINED CLEARLY BY RHESUS MEDICINE

 

SANFORD MEDICAL WHAT IS FND

SANFORD MEDICAL - WHAT IS FND
 

RECOGNISING FUNCTIONAL SEIZURES - PROF JON STONE

WORLD RESPECTED NEUROLOGIST, PROFESSOR JON STONE

ON

RECOGNISING FUNCTIONAL SEIZURES

 

OL' FND SONG

A SONG ABOUT FND

 

MYTHBUSTER - FND IS FAKE

FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGICAL DISORDER IS OFTEN DISMISSED AS FAKE OR FICTICIOUS DISORDER

 

MYTHBUSTER - FND IS NOT ATTENTION SEEKING

BUSTING MYTHS ABOUT "ATTENTION SEEKING" VS FND

 

WELLWORKS CATALOG

 THE .PDF CATALOG OF PRODUCTS RE CANANBIS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iWcimCMmAuVREjm_qnmw05C227Hskf1X/view?usp=sharing

No area of stroke research should be left behind

 More than 12 million incident cases of stroke are thought

to have occurred in 2019, when stroke was also the

second-leading cause of death and the third-leading cause

of death and disability combined. Thanks to the efforts of

stroke researchers and study participants, many advances

that might help to reduce this burden have been made

over the past two decades. Much of this progress has

been in acute management and secondary prevention of

ischaemic stroke, and as this issue of The Lancet Neurology

was going to press, results from several trials testing

such approaches were scheduled to be presented at the

8th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC),

on May 4–6, 2022, in Lyon, France. If such progress is to

continue, and similarly impressive advances are to be

made in primary prevention, haemorrhagic stroke, and

longer-term care, all areas of stroke need to be a higher

priority for research funding.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eGQds8AyZjDQXgkdnjDX8UgqCWX88ZTA/view?usp=sharing

The use of amantadine in catatonia

 We read with interest the excellent

Personal View by Olivier Rascol and

colleagues on the use of amantadine

in Parkinson’s disease and other

movement disorders.1

One movement

disorder for which amantadine

has shown some benefit but the

authors did not mention is catatonia.

Catatonia is a neuropsychiatric

syndrome that occurs in association

with psychiatric disorders such as

schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,

and also various neurological diseases,

including autoimmune encephalitis.

Characteristic clinical signs include

stupor, mutism, posturing, catalepsy,

echophenomena, mannerisms,

stereotypies, and negativism.

Catatonia has been associated

with substantial morbidity and

complications, including pneumonia,

acute kidney injury, and pulmonary

embolus.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EVEua8i4HrJighmDezUBaBIs3NOnw9aq/view?usp=sharing

FND Functional Neurological Disorder in Aotearoa/NZ 3.4.24

 THIS IS A POWER POINT USED IN CONFERENCE WITH NEUROLOGIST M PHILLIPS AND THE HEAD OF MEDICINE IN 2023

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZgLKSDnjE9Ss85-rT5xQWTbRr2CJEoMM/view?usp=sharing

HOW TO MANAGE CRPS FLARES

 MANAGIN PAIN IS DIFFICULT, HERE IS A GUIDE TO METHODS USED BY PATIENTS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bOVskQ_qScDKdf_dgSWqkfZSWWJ3j0rm/view?usp=drive_link

Functional neurological disorder: new subtypes and shared mechanisms

 Functional neurological disorder is common in neurological practice. A new approach to the positive diagnosis of this

disorder focuses on recognisable patterns of genuinely experienced symptoms and signs that show variability within

the same task and between different tasks over time. Psychological stressors are common risk factors for functional

neurological disorder, but are often absent. Four entities—functional seizures, functional movement disorders,

persistent perceptual postural dizziness, and functional cognitive disorder—show similarities in aetiology and

pathophysiology and are variants of a disorder at the interface between neurology and psychiatry. All four entities have

distinctive features and can be diagnosed with the support of clinical neurophysiological studies and other biomarkers.

The pathophysiology of functional neurological disorder includes overactivity of the limbic system, the development of

an internal symptom model as part of a predictive coding framework, and dysfunction of brain networks that gives

movement the sense of voluntariness. Evidence supports tailored multidisciplinary treatment that can involve physical

and psychological therapy approaches.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EnFs_fM6wZ-rLjU0LrMSAsTxy5hPKC7j/view?usp=drive_link

FND AS A SECONDARY CONDITION

 Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a complex condition that is caused

by various triggers and presents itself in unique ways differing from person to

person. Someone with FND might present with similar symptoms as someone

with a Stroke, Parkinson’s Disease or Epilepsy for example. However, instead

of it being structural, it is functional – a disconnect between the brain sending

signals, and the body receiving them. As well, people with FND can also have

epilepsy and other comorbidities. The mind/body connection can get “glitchy”

and has trouble processing sensory inputs and emotional overload. This

sometimes happens randomly on a neurological level, sometimes there is a

(direct correlation between the trigger and symptom - cause/effect) stress

trigger, which can be causing an overwhelming amount of any emotion, and

sometimes it’s a sensory overload in the environment which causes physical

or mental symptoms. This does not mean that symptoms are psychological

and that this is a mental disorder or “attention seeking behaviour” as that is

outdated understandings and simply inaccurate according to new research

and observation. Behaviour means having a choice to do something, these

symptoms are not chosen by the person with FND however are reactions to

stress and overwhelm. Some common symptoms may include arm and leg

weakness, seizures, fainting, ticks, tremors, intense pain, and the list may go

on and on for some people. The nervous system generally can be on high

alert and hypersensitive to triggers. That is, until the person’s stress bucket is

emptied enough and equipped with enough coping skills to manage. (Written

by Katerina Giovos, 2023).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15t4eCe9ij7-NQnLliZ3Qq3SjyZfsihLS/view?usp=drive_link

Brain imaging research is thriving in functional neurological disorder

 

1. Introduction

Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a condition at the neurology-psychiatry interface that impacts individuals across the lifespan (Hallett et al., 2022). The conceptualization of FND in the 20th century was fraught with dualistic perspectives of brain versus mind – exemplified by outdated terms such as “hysteria” and “psychogenic”. Structure and function are closely coupled in the human brain, and neuroimaging research in FND provides an opportunity to bridge the science of brain and mind in this prevalent and potentially disabling condition (Finkelstein et al., 2025, O’Mahony et al., 2023). Advancing the neuroscience of FND further erodes artificial distinctions between brain health and mental health – and offers the potential to develop novel mechanistically-informed treatments.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221315822600063X

Functional Neurologic Disorder (NIH)

 

What is functional neurologic disorder?

Functional neurologic disorder (FND) refers to a neurological condition caused by changes in how brain networks work, rather than changes in the structure of the brain itself, as seen in many other neurological disorders. Physical symptoms of FND are genuine but cannot be explained by changes in the brain structure. The exact cause of FND is unknown.

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/functional-neurologic-disorder