From Concussion to Long COVID: A unified approach to functional disorders

The talk will cover a modern approach to functional neurological disorders, persistent physical symptoms, bodily distress disorder, and somatic symptom disorders. These conditions can sometimes be labelled as post-concussion syndrome, PPPV, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, central tinnitus, multiple chemical sensitivity,  long-COVID/post-viral syndrome and other conditions.  Increasingly, there is an understanding that there are neurophysiological commonalities to all these conditions that relate to autonomic dysfunction and concomitant sub-clinical changes in immune modulation.  

These conditions should be differentiated from abnormal illness behaviour and health anxiety, as well as rare medical/metabolic disorders and atypical manifestations of organic medical/endocrine/immune conditions with neuropsychiatric manifestations.  

Sleep, attentional, affective, eating, and substance disorders also should be considered in this population as should vulnerabilities related to  attachment style/adverse childhood experiences which can guide treatment choices and/or predict treatment resistance.

This talk will discuss European and North American data, experience and treatment approaches.