Functional Movement Disorders

Patients with functional movement disorders exhibit abnormal movements that are incongruent with the symptoms of well-defined neurological disorders. Although functional movement disorders are very common, to date there are no uniformly valid treatment recommendations, which is why many patients do not experience satisfactory treatment of their symptoms. This is particularly unfortunate as effective treatment can sometimes lead to a complete reduction in symptoms. The reason for this is that functional movement disorders are not based on structural lesions in the nervous system. Rather, there is probably an abnormal interaction between different areas of the brain which leads to an impairment of motor function.

We are trying to understand the underlying processes in the brain that constitute functional movement disorders. In a large proportion of patients, we observe an increased attentional focus on the abnormal movements and, associated with this, a disturbed perception of self-generated movement. Recent scientific studies on this disorder confirm this view.

From a conceptual point of view, this requires therapeutic approaches in which the refocusing of attention is trained. Therefore, we initiated a clinical trial to investigate therapeutic options for functional movement disorders:

ReMAP-FMD: Metacognitive therapy and neuro-physiotherapy for the treatment of functional movement disorders - a randomised, observer-blinded feasibility study. Further information can also be found under clinical trials.