Sense of control, selective attention and cognitive inhibition in pediatric functional seizures: A prospective case-control study

Evidence-Based Mind-Body Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Functional Neurological Disorder

“…All these clinicians and their teams have contributed to recent advances in theory, best-practice guidelines, and evaluation of treatment outcomes, thereby providing direction for clinicians around the world (see Supplemental Text Box 2, http://links.lww.com/HRP/A210). 10,11,15,20,25,37,40,43,58,59,74,80,81,92,108–128 Through collaborative efforts, these teams have also worked hard to highlight that the pressing need to develop an FND-informed culture of care that takes into account recent advances in our understanding and clinical care of children and adolescents with FND 26 …”

“…The last decade has seen significant advances in many areas related to pediatric FND: its neurobiology; the medical/neurological assessment of the disorder, which yields a positive diagnosis; the biopsychosocial assessment, which yields a formulation that is co-constructed with the child and the family; the use of the formulation as a guide to treatment planning; and the development of evidence-based interventions that make up the treatment components within the treatment intervention. These advances have been brought about through the dedicated work of clinicians and clinical teams from around the world, including Elena Garralda and her colleagues in the United Kingdom; 74,[108][109][110] Jan Baker and her speech therapy colleagues in Australia; 43,111,112 Per Fink, 113,114 Charlotte Rask, 74,115,116 Karen Hansen Kallesøe [117][118][119] and their colleagues in Denmark; Trond Diseth, 120 Helene Helgeland, 37,58 Stein Førde, 59 and their colleagues in Norway; Tyson Sawchuk and his colleagues in Canada; 11,20,81 Aaron Fobian (Alabama), 15,80,92,121 Jeffrey Waugh (Texas), [122][123][124] and Areti Vassilopoulos (Connecticut), 25 and their colleagues, all in the United States; and, finally, the work of our own mind-body team in Australia (cited throughout this article). All these clinicians and their teams have contributed to recent advances in theory, best-practice guidelines, and evaluation of treatment outcomes, thereby providing direction for clinicians around the world (see Supplemental Text Box 2, http://links.…”

“…39,40,79 Excessive attention to symptoms is a core aspect of FND. 15,26,80 Drawing focus-of-attention away from the symptoms and toward functional goals is implemented across all interventions: the work with the child (including physical therapy), the work with the family, and attendance at school.…”

“…40 For other resources from other teams, see Sawchuk and colleagues (2020) 81 and publications by Fobian and colleagues. 15,80 Downregulating (Calming Down) or Re-Regulating the Child's Stress System In visual terms that are both child and family friendly, we often talk about this group of interventions for downregulation and re-regulation in terms of reducing the size of the red ball we used in communicating the formulation (see brain stress systems metaphor embedded in Figure 6). Once the child has become adept at utilizing the calming strategies, they are integrated into the daily timetable for regular practice, thereby helping to downregulate background arousal.…”

COVID-19 Vaccination in Young People with Functional Neurological Disorder: A Case-Control Study

“…Once vaccination or another stressor (physical or emotional) has triggered the FND symptoms, a number of factors may contribute to symptom maintenance (see Supplementary Text Box S8) [3,[6][7][8][9][10][11]36,42,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75]88,[93][94][95][96]. Broadly speaking, all these factors re-flect the young person's inability, including the inability of the young person's biological system, to activate restorative (calming) processes that could help the mind, body, and brain return to baseline function.…”