What is FND?
Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is a complex medical condition relating to wonky signals from the brain.
What is Functional Neurological Disorder?
Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is one of the most common conditions in neurology services. It accounts for around 6% of their outpatient appointments and affects as many as 100,000 people in the UK. It is also one of the hardest conditions for neurology services to diagnose and medicate, because it doesn’t appear on scans and there is no clear biological condition.
On this page, we’ll look at each of the three words in FND – Functional, Neurological, and Disorder – to help explain what the medical world means by FND.
You might also be interested in our information about the symptoms of FND and other conditions associated with FND.
If you are looking for help with FND symptoms, you might like our FND Treatments page.
What does Functional mean?
“Functional” means the problem is not caused by physical damage to the brain or body.
Biologically, things will look like they’re in the right place, but the brain is sending “wonky” signals that cause the symptoms.
The brain may have a good reason for sending those signals and may be trying to help. However, the symptoms don’t tend to serve people very well.
Some people refer to the metaphor of a computer.
A computer might have a hardware issue if the wires, chips or power supply are damaged. The hardware will need fixing or replacing. Alternatively, there might be an operating system issue or a software issue, where the hardware is fine, but the computer still misbehaves. If someone opens the computer and looks inside, they won’t be able to see what the problem is.
Functional means we have a “software issue” rather than a “hardware issue”.
The biological components all look OK but the wrong messages are being sent from the brain to the body.
Therefore, to reduce FND symptoms, we need to change subconscious processing so that the brain operates differently.
FND is only diagnosed after physical examinations are complete, to check that there are no biological issues that need fixing.
What does Neurological mean?
In medical terms, “neurological” means the body’s nervous system. Its system of nerves.
This includes the nerves in the brain, the spinal cord, and nerves that travel into the body.
Neurological conditions are those that affect movement, sensation, balance, speech, memory, awareness and many automatic bodily functions.
What does Disorder mean?
The term “Disorder” means that the body or mind is not functioning in a way that is seen as usual and healthy.
It suggests there is a problem.
If you’re suffering FND, you probably already know there’s a problem, and you’re looking for a way to solve it and feel better.
FND Symptoms
The symptoms of FND can be wide ranging and very different for different people.
The following video interviews Tom Plender, who experienced involuntary twisting in his neck and shoulders. Tom was treated by Professor Mark Edwards at King’s College London. While diagnosis took 12 years, he is now recovering well.
Help for FND
If you are experiencing the symptoms of FND, it is important that you get a medical diagnosis and medical support.
Medical teams can advise on medical treatment for FND, which can include clinical hypnotherapy for FND, which can be provided by our EasingFND team.
Our very best wishes for your recovery.