J Stone

..It should be borne in mind that a patient may have both a functional and an organic disorder...

..quot;Psychosomatic medicine" is the new name for the seventh subspecialty of psychiatry. More needs to be done to educate the media about its actual meaning to make it attractive to patients...

..In this study we examine the meanings of these labels for patients, which have the least potential to offend, and consequently to provide a more positive basis for further management...

..There was a wide range of age at onset and considerable diagnostic overlap with scleroderma "en coup de sabre."..

..An alternative view, that gives primacy to the symptoms rather than a disorder, may enable more precise research questions to be posed...

..To describe changes in personality after stroke and effects on carers...

..The aim of this study was to examine the illness beliefs and locus of control of patients with recent onset pseudoseizures and to compare these with patients with recent onset epilepsy...

..Although the symptoms of unilateral "medically unexplained" or "functional" weakness and sensory disturbance present commonly to neurologists, little is known about their long term prognosis...

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..Analysis of CSF and pathology obtained at brain biopsy provides evidence of an inflammatory process which may be amenable to immunosuppressive treatment...

..La belle indifférence refers to an apparent lack of concern shown by some patients towards their symptoms. It is often regarded as typical of conversion symptoms/hysteria...

..To test the hypothesis that unilateral motor and sensory symptoms unexplained by identifiable disease are more common on the left side of the body than the right...

..A lifelong personal and family history of mental handicap in the absence of anticardiolipin antibodies suggests Divry-Van Bogaert syndrome, not previously been reported in a female. Similarities to Sneddon's syndrome are discussed...

..To determine the disability, distress and employment status of new neurology outpatients with physical symptoms unexplained by organic disease and to compare them with patients with symptoms explained by organic disease...

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..Previous studies of this topic have been limited by being of only single centres or lacking in detail. We aimed to describe the neurological diagnoses made in a large series of referrals to neurology outpatient clinics...

..We tested the hypothesis that adding CBT-based guided self-help (GSH) to the usual care (UC) received by patients improves outcomes...

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..All doctors recognise that some patients are more "difficult to help" than others, but the issue has received little systematic investigation in neurological practice...

..In a previous cross sectional study of 300 consecutive new attenders at neurology outpatient clinics, 90 were detected with symptoms that were rated as "not at all" or only "somewhat" explained by organic disease...

..We therefore aimed to determine predictors of poor subjective outcome for new neurology out-patients with symptoms unexplained by disease 1 year after the initial consultation...

..Severe headache can be a striking presenting feature of thyrotoxicosis, but these cases provide reassurance to the clinician that when this does occur, other clinical features of hyperthyroidism are usually present...

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..We aimed to determine how frequently this misdiagnosis occurs, and whether it has become less common since the widespread availability of brain imaging...

..If real, the association may lack generalizability because of the specific characteristics of the cases studied and could be due to reverse causality...

..We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the concept of conversion disorder...

..A new diagnosis, which with hindsight explained the original symptoms, rarely became apparent to the patient's primary care doctor in the 18 months following the initial hospital consultation...

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..While some may have had an alternative organic cause, we propose that these symptoms may have a "functional" origin in many patients...

..A multidisciplinary approach involving concurrent physical and psychological treatments is often recommended, although further study is required to determine the best approaches to explain and treat these conditions...

..It is a common clinical problem in neurology but its neural correlates remain poorly understood...

..In a previous prospective study of 300 consecutive new attenders at neurology outpatient clinics, depressive disorders were diagnosed in 119 patients (40%) and major depressive disorder in 77 (26%)...

..There are many useful steps in management that do not require a detailed understanding of aetiology in an individual patient...

..We aimed to test whether outcome differs between adults who had interventional AVM treatment and those who did not...

..To establish whether the DNA expansion linked to spinocerebellar ataxia type 8 (SCA 8) is associated with ataxia in Scotland; to clarify the range of associated clinical phenotypes; and to compare the findings with previous reports...

..However, by selecting both cases and controls with recent onset symptoms, the potential bias of differing illness durations and complicating factors of chronicity that have affected previous studies was avoided...