FROM JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY, NEUROSURGERY & PSYCHIATRY
Clinicians, other caregivers, and even patients often think that functional neurological symptoms and movement disorders are feigned or somewhat amenable to the patient’s control, according to two separate survey studies published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
In the first study, Sandra M. A. van der Salm, MD, and her associates reported their assessments of clinicians’ and patients’ views about “free will” pertaining to three movement disorders: functional (“psychogenic”) movement disorders, myoclonus, and tics. They administered survey questionnaires to 39 expert clinicians, 28 patients with functional movement disorders, 15 patients with myoclonus, 17 patients with tics, and 22 healthy control subjects.
Clinicians differed markedly from patients in their perceptions of patient control over movements and symptoms. The majority rated “raising one’s hand to vote” as completely voluntary, functional movement disorders as largely involuntary, tics as slightly more involuntary than voluntary, and myoclonus as completely involuntary. In contrast, most patients (other than some who said they were sometimes able to suppress tics) felt their movements and symptoms were well beyond their control, reported Dr. van der Salm of the department of neurology and clinical neurophysiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, and her associates ( J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2017 March 11. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2016-315152 ).
“For clinicians, it may be helpful to realize that doctors and patients may have different views of voluntariness in movement disorders, in particular regarding tics and functional movement disorders. Keeping this gap in mind during consultation could prevent misunderstandings that might jeopardize the doctor-patient relationship,” the investigators wrote.
“Our results suggest that patients with functional movement disorders probably require different cognitive behavioral techniques than those used for tics, because patients with functional movement disorders experience less behavioral control” of their symptoms, they wrote.
In the second study, Richard A. A. Kanaan, MD, and Juen Mei Ding, MD, both in the department of psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, reported the results of their survey of 172 “people waiting in a general hospital outpatient department,” including patients, family members, and caregivers.
The questionnaire presented a hypothetical scenario to the respondent in which he or she had “leg weakness” for which all tests had come back negative. A doctor presented seven possible terms for the symptoms and then asked respondents whether such patients would be imagining their symptoms, faking their symptoms, mentally ill, or having a medical condition. The seven diagnoses were functional weakness, psychogenic weakness, medically unexplained weakness, somatic symptom disorder, dissociative disorder, conversion disorder, and stroke.
A total of 26% of the respondents said that at least one of the diagnoses connoted feigning, “confirming that suspicions of feigning in functional neurological symptoms remain a problem among patients and the public,” wrote Dr. Kanaan and Dr. Ding ( J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2017 March 9. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2016-315224 ).
There was a strong correlation between the respondents’ opinions of “faking” and their level of education. Study participants with only a primary-school education were the most likely to think symptoms were feigned (32 of 94), while those with a tertiary education were very unlikely to think so (9 of 73), the investigators said.
It was encouraging that this correlation disappeared after a “simple remedy” was applied: briefly explaining the meaning of each diagnosis. Thus, “the problem appears to be largely one of public ignorance, rather than some inherent stigmatization of mental health,” Dr. Kanaan and Dr. Ding wrote.
Dr. van der Salm’s study was funded by the Academic Medical Center graduate school. No funding source was cited for the study by Dr. Kanaan and Dr. Ding. Both research groups reported having no relevant financial disclosures.
