Functional Movement Disorders Study Group

See All Study Groups

Kathrin LaFaver Chair

Alberto Espay Co-Chair

MDS Staff Liaison: Finoula Harrington​​​​​​​

About the Functional Movement Disorders (FMD) Study Group

Background

Functional Movement Disorders (FMD) are among the most common reasons for patients to present to a movement disorder specialist. Symptoms include tremor, dystonia, chorea, weakness, gait disorders, cognitive complaints and dysarthria, and diagnosis needs to be ascertained by movement disorder neurologists to identify phenotypic features that are inconsistent and incongruent with the wide range of organic disorders. Patients with FMD frequently suffer from comorbid anxiety and depression, however presence of a psychological stress factor is no longer required for the diagnosis of FMD by DSM-V criteria. Despite their common occurrence, the etiology of FMD is poorly understood and there are no defined treatment guidelines. Patients often feel stigmatized and there is a lack of public awareness, access to treatment resources and funding for research.

Goals/Mission

• To create standardized instruments for assessment of FMD to aid in diagnosis, longitudinal symptom tracking and measuring outcomes in clinical trials.
• To collaborate on a multicenter database/clinical registry for FMD for research purposes, generating epidemiologic data and comparing clinical features across different populations.
• To identify research goals in FMD in regards to epidemiology, risk factors, pathophysiology, biomarkers, and therapeutics.
   

Ongoing Projects

Our group is working on creating a pilot study for an international FMD registry and obtaining funding for collaborative research projects. A collaboration with NINDS is being actively pursued to advocate for federally-funded research into FMD.

With international members of the FMD Study Group, a state-of the-art review article was recently completed, titled “Functional Neurologic Disorders: Current Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment”. This article, published by JAMA Neurology, is expected to serve as a reference to clinicians and raise awareness and education on functional disorders across the world.