OT and Functional Neurological Disorder

Functional neurological disorder (FND) has been called a “silent epidemic,” a “crisis” in neurology, and psychiatry’s “blind spot.”

And, I have to admit it has been a huge personal blind spot for me.

I knew nothing of this condition.

Luckily, others in the OT community have been hard at work standardizing care for these patients. Multidisciplinary treatment, including referral to OT is a best practice for these patients. And, today we will look at expert recommendations for OT assessment and treatment.

After we review the OT recommendations for FND, we will welcome Naoya Ogura, OTD, OTR/L, he is the West Los Angeles Clinic Director at re-active and specializes in neurological conditions like POTS, EDS, MCAS, and FND.

1. You will be able to identify components of an OT assessment for functional neurological disorder.

2. You will be able to recognize recommended OT treatment interventions for FND.

• Intro and breakdown of journal article

  • Intro

  • What is Functional Neurological Disorder?

  • What treatment is recommended?

  • What was the intent of this paper?

  • What were their methods?

  • Recommendations for OT

  • Article discussion and conclusion

  • Intro to Naoya Ogura

• Discussion on practical implications for OTs

  1. How Naoya learned about FND

  2. How his clinic earned a reputation for specializing in FND

  3. Article impressions

  4. Client education on FND

  5. Approaching FND differently from other neuro cases

  6. Assessment for FND

  7. Naoya’s treatment approaches

  8. Advice for navigating functional seizures

  9. What does discharge look like?

  10. Not enough people with FND make it to OT. How do we change that?

Primary

• Occupational therapy consensus recommendations for functional neurological disorder

Additional

• Assessment of Emergency Department and Inpatient Use and Costs in Adult and Pediatric Functional Neurological Disorders

• Diagnosis and management of functional neurological disorder

Supplemental Resources

• Handouts and Worksheet: Functional Neurological Disorder (Coming soon...)

• re+active (The clinic where Naoya works!)

• FND Guide from neurosymptoms.org

• FND Hope

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

OT Potential pays guest speakers an honorarium for their participation, either directly or to an institution of the speaker's choosing at their request. We invite guests whose expertise often comes from practices, programs, or building products in their field. Where a speaker has a financial interest in the subject of a course, we disclose it below so you can weigh it for yourself.

OT Potential's interest in this topic: We have no financial stake in this topic.

Speaker interests: Naoya Ogura has no financial interest in this topic to disclose.