Original title: Empowering recovery: the role of self-management in motor-functional neurological disorder
Motor-FNDA form of functional neurological disorder involving problems with movement. is a condition involving problems with movement. This mini-review describes self-management: using knowledge and skills to manage symptoms during and after therapy. It includes learning about FND, practising ways to make movement feel more normal, setting goals and increasing activity gradually, and planning for relapses. The evidence is limited but promising, and researchers still need to work out which strategies to use and how to deliver them.
Imagine learning to cook a meal without someone standing beside you. It is hard to keep going when a step goes wrong, or to know what to do if the meal starts to burn. In this paper, learning the recipe is like education, practising each step is like building movement and activity, and having a plan for a burnt meal is like preparing for setbacks.
For people with motor-FND, rehabilitation does not end when a therapy session does. Self-management may help them use what they learn in daily life, keep working toward goals, and prepare for setbacks, though the evidence is still limited.
The abstract describes the evidence as limited and does not establish which self-management strategies work best, for whom, or how they should be delivered. It calls for future studies on the strategies' content, type, intensity, and delivery.
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Empowering recovery: the role of self-management in motor-functional neurological disorder — Sara Issak, Richard Kanaan, Glenn Nielsen — Frontiers in Neurology — doi:10.3389/fneur.2026.1967513
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.