Treatment Approaches for Functional Neurological Disorders in Children, 2022, Vassilopoulos et al

Abstract

Purpose of Review
Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a multi-network brain disorder that encompasses a broad range of neurological symptoms. FND is common in pediatric practice. It places substantial strains on children, families, and health care systems. Treatment begins at assessment, which requires the following: the medical task of making the diagnosis, the interpersonal task of engaging the child and family so that they feel heard and respected, the communication task of communicating and explaining the diagnosis, and the logistical task of organizing treatment.

Recent Findings
Over the past decade, three treatment approaches—Retraining and Control Therapy (ReACT), other cognitive-behavioral therapies, and multidisciplinary rehabilitation—have been evaluated in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Of children treated in such programs, 63 − 95% showed full resolution of FND symptoms. The common thread across the programs is their biopsychosocial approach—consideration of biological, psychological, relational, and school-related factors that contribute to the child’s clinical presentation.

Summary
Current research strongly supports a biopsychosocial approach to pediatric FND and provides a foundation for a stepped approach to treatment. Stepped care is initially tailored to the needs of the individual child (and family) based on the pattern and severity of FND presentation. The level of care and type of intervention may then be adjusted to consider the child’s response, over time, to treatment or treatment combinations. Future research is needed to confirm effective treatment targets, to inform the development of stepped care, and to improve methodologies that can assess the efficacy of stepped-care interventions.

Open access, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11940-022-00708-5

 

A 100% hammer-based approach to a problem yields 100% hammer-based solutions, when you define an effective solution as being 100% hammer-based.

Just don't measure anything. In fact, don't look. Just don't look.

This is alternative medicine mixed with abuse of power. It's just about being there while the problem solves itself just enough to attribute credit to themselves. These people would scoff at the idea of placing healing crystals under the pillow of someone suffering from the flu, then attributing recovery to the healing crystal. The only difference is the longer timespan. They are doing exactly the same thing, merely switching the fake ritual.

It's going to be necessary at some point to revisit every damn thing medicine does to scrape out all the variations of this, because if it can happen this blatantly and ineptly, you can be certain that this behavior is far more widespread than it even appears and from the distance I'm standing at it seems to have crept everywhere.

 

Aaaargh

 

Bad research and twisting of all results to be positive is letting them claim this high success rate. It would take a hard hearted paediatric doctor to refuse the treatment. No wonder parents are threatened with removal orders if they do not agree.