Functional Neurological Disorder - an article from the NIH

[Arnie Pye]

NIH = National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
and the website is described as "An official website of the United States Government"

Title : Functional Neurological Disorder

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

I'm only posting this because it comes from the US Government, and I found it absolutely horrifying.

As someone with a gait disorder, which gets mentioned in that link, I think I am lucky to have never had it described as FND and to have had surgery which helped to massively reduce the problem - although the neurologist I saw initially was quite happy to keep me waiting for seven years after diagnosis before agreeing to refer me to a neurosurgeon at a different hospital.

 

[Charles B.]

One of the links at the end of the website is to Jon Stone’s neurosymptoms website. I believe that website categorizes ME as a functional somatic syndrome and also favorably cites Recovery Norge.

Would be worth writing NIH to ask whether they agree with this sentiment, and if not, why they’ve linked to Jon Stone?? I would guess that the NIH folks favorable to us had nothing to do with the FND page and might not even know it exists

 

[Hutan]

Who is more likely to get functional neurologic disorder?
Anyone can develop FND. An estimated four to 12 people per 100,000 will develop FND. Fundamental causes may involve biological factors (such as early childhood trauma and early life stress, emotions, a propensity of anxiety, witness to violence, maltreatment, or childhood sexual abuse) or sociological factors (including interpersonal relationships and stress). Some of these factors can trigger episodes of FND.

The disorder is more common in women and particularly in those who have a history of early life sexual trauma. It can occur but is uncommon in children under age 10. There appears to be an association with depression and anxiety, early life trauma, a dysfunctional family life, and even a dislike of job.

FND sometimes has a psychological cause as one of the relevant factors and may result from a somatic symptoms disorder (characterized predominantly by multi-system symptoms that are associated with distress and/or dysfunction and look like a physical illness).

There's no good evidence for most of that. That page is really bad nonsense.

The page was last reviewed on Jan 2023.

It is possible to leave feedback about the page - there's a feedback box on the left.

 

[Trish]

Functional neurologic disorder (FND), also known as conversion disorder and functional neurologic symptom disorder, refers to a group of common neurological movement disorders caused by an abnormality in how the brain functions.

An estimated four to 12 people per 100,000 will develop FND.

On that basis, in the USA with a population of about 330 million, the estimate might be about 16,000 to 40,000 developing FND sometime in their lives. That doesn't square with 'common'. In the UK it could be as low as 4000.

 

[Laurie P]

One of the links at the end of the website is to Jon Stone’s neurosymptoms website. I believe that website categorizes ME as a functional somatic syndrome and also favorably cites Recovery Norge.

Would be worth writing NIH to ask whether they agree with this sentiment, and if not, why they’ve linked to Jon Stone?? I would guess that the NIH folks favorable to us had nothing to do with the FND page and might not even know it exists

CFS/ME, chronic fatigue syndrome / M.E. and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME) are on the fatigue page https://pre-prod.neurosymptoms.org/en_GB/symptoms/common-associated-symptoms/fatigue/ which has links to the NHS website https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs and Dr. Vogt's website Recovery Norway www.recoverynorway.org.

 

[Sean]

Fundamental causes may involve biological factors (such as early childhood trauma and early life stress, emotions, a propensity of anxiety, witness to violence, maltreatment, or childhood sexual abuse)

If that is their definition of 'biological' then I think I am on the verge of spotting the problem.

 

[bobbler]

There's no good evidence for most of that. That page is really bad nonsense.

The page was last reviewed on Jan 2023.

It is possible to leave feedback about the page - there's a feedback box on the left.

yep they are just writing their quotas that they want filled by priming ‘you should be seeing x number’ then suggesting ‘and if you aren’t keeping up then may I ask you to turn your attention to young women who might seem emotional or aren’t but you can make em seem/see them as potentially that way’.

To me none of that sort of stuff reads as science or medicine, just propaganda for building bigotry barely masquerading by using section titles that ape medicine. And give clear action points that are meant to influence who and how many get labelled rather than talking about any genuine differentials or etiology. It’s how to deal with those difficult. young women you think moi got fit the hysterical mould, and if you haven’t seen them you aren’t looking hard enough and they must be fooling you.