I think we’re in a renaissance of treatment for functional movement disorder. You know, for so long the paradigm that neurologists have worked under is that we are the ones to diagnose the patient with a functional neurological disorder, movement disorder, and then at that point there’s kind of not much more that we can do. And typically providers would then refer patients on to a psychiatrist, maybe a physiotherapist, or other rehab specialists...
I think we’re in a renaissance of treatment for functional movement disorder. You know, for so long the paradigm that neurologists have worked under is that we are the ones to diagnose the patient with a functional neurological disorder, movement disorder, and then at that point there’s kind of not much more that we can do. And typically providers would then refer patients on to a psychiatrist, maybe a physiotherapist, or other rehab specialists. And I think there’s a lot of advancements that have been made in how we understand and conceptualize this whole group of functional neurological symptoms and how they can be treated. And there’s a lot of work that the neurologist can actually do to help with that. The most important thing, of course, is to make sure the patient has a good, clear diagnosis and resources to understand what’s happening in their body and understand their condition and giving them a way to understand their symptoms through a model. So sometimes it’s that the nervous system is overwhelmed or maybe that their brain has learned an abnormal motor pathway that could be changed through rehab. And then it’s actually helping the patient to learn these strategies to self-manage their condition with the help of other people in the care team. So that could be the help of a psychiatrist if there’s anxiety or depression that’s coming alongside, or it could also be a physiotherapist to help with motor retraining physiotherapy. So the neurologist really is the most important person to bridge that gap between the patient having that diagnosis and then linking them to resources for therapy that could be really beneficial.
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