Proust and his neurologists: the challenge of functional disorders

Functional neurological disorders are a major challenge. For clinicians and patients alike, they are one of the most difficult conditions to deal with, not least because treatment options seem so limited. Modern clinicians feel impotent when confronted by them. There is simply no easy fix. Patients often have no effective intervention. When an ‘organic’ diagnosis cannot be made, they are frequently left isolated, perplexed—and symptomatic. But, of course, functional disorders are not new. They have always been present. Perhaps one of the most celebrated—and complex—of sufferers was Marcel Proust. One hundred and fifty years sinc e his birth, it is instructive to look back, through the prism of his experiences at how some of the most eminent neurologists in Paris managed his condition.1,2 There might be some lessons here too for the modern era.

Source: Brain - September 3, 2021 Category: Neurology Source Type: research