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FND stands for Functional Neurological Disorder.
Functional symptoms are neurological symptoms which are not caused by damage, disease or degeneration in the nervous system. These symptoms vary for each individual and may affect your movement, thinking or speech amongst other things. They may look like the symptoms of a neurological condition but without a physical cause. Instead, there is a problem with the way the brain is sending and receiving messages to and from the body. Functional symptoms can be difficult for people to understand but these symptoms are real and not imagined, so they occur outside of our conscious control.
For example, if you were a computer, it would be like having a software (the programme) problem rather than a hardware (the computer) problem. If you have a software bug on your computer, it might keep crashing or work slowly, but you wouldn’t see anything if you opened it up and looked at the physical components. You would have to solve it by working out which programs were causing the problem and reprogramming the computer. In a nutshell, there is a problem with the functioning of the nervous system rather than a structural issue. For this reason, it is important to know that there may be potential for your symptoms to improve.
Is it a rare condition?
No. However, not many people have heard of FND and it is often misunderstood by health professionals and the public. This might make you think that it is very rare but it is actually a common condition that we see in our services.
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