Management of Functional Vision Disorders.

Purpose Of Review: The purpose of this review is to summarize current approaches to management of functional vision disorder (FVD).

Recent Findings: Several retrospective studies of FVD in both adults and children have shed light on the range of outcomes and the prevalence of psychosocial stressors among FVD patients. While the first line of treatment for FVD is reassurance and education, recent case reports highlight the use of additional treatment modalities including psychotherapy, hypnosis, and transcranial magnetic stimulation in specific cases.

Functional seizures: The patient's perspective of a diagnostic and treatment odyssey.

Functional seizures can be challenging to properly diagnose, often leading to delays in treatment. The etiology of functional seizures is multifactorial, with psychological factors identified in many, but not all cases. Misdiagnosis may occur due to clinical features mimicking other medical conditions.

Using Patient-Centered Clinical Neuroscience to Deliver the Diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder (FND): Results from an Innovative Educational Workshop.

Objectives: Psychiatry training is lacking examples of neuroscience education that translates neuroscience literature into accessible clinically oriented concepts. The authors created a teaching activity using patient-centered neuroscience education that focused on delivering the diagnosis of functional neurological disorder (FND). This study aimed to (i) develop a workshop modeling a clinician-patient interaction, (ii) provide a modern neuroscience perspective of FND, and (iii) evaluate the change in clinicians' perceptions of FND.

Detection of seizure-like movements using a wrist accelerometer.

Caregivers of people with epilepsy are commonly concerned about unwitnessed seizures causing injury and even death. The goal of this study was to determine if a wrist-worn motion detector could detect tonic-clonic seizures. Individuals admitted for continuous video/EEG monitoring wore a wristwatch-size device that was programmed to detect rhythmic movements such as those that occur during tonic-clonic seizures.

Therapeutic brain stimulation for epilepsy.

DBS has been a possible therapy for epilepsy for more than 30 years, and now it is moving to the point of clinical utility. Animal models have shown efficacy of DBS at several brain regions, although not all animal studies have shown efficacy. Clinically, an array of sites have been explored, including the cerebellum, anterior nucleus of the thalamus, CM nucleus, hippocampus, subthalamic nucleus, brainstem, and corpus callosum; direct stimulation of the cortex has also been explored.

Stiff-person syndrome.

Classic stiff-person syndrome (SPS) is a clinically diagnosed disease characterized by axial and often appendicular rigidity with lumbar hyperlordosis and painful spasms. Supportive data include increased glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibody titers more than 20 nmol/L, a needle electromyography with continuous motor unit activity in at least one axial muscle, and normal MRI and cerebrospinal fluid studies. Variants of SPS include those with focal limb dysfunction (stiff-limb syndrome), encephalomyelitis ("SPS plus"), and those associated with paraneoplastic autoantibodies.