Consultant Neurologist (NHS Lothian) & Honorary Professor in Neurology (University of Edinbugh)
I started this site in 2009 for people with functional neurological disorders and symptoms. But I realise that readers need to know where this information comes from.
I am a Neurologist in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have been involved in research in this area with my colleague Alan Carson in Edinburgh and other colleagues across the UK and world since 1999. Our research has mostly been about describing the clinical features of functional neurological disorders and their treatment. We are driven by a desire to improve knowledge, understanding and attitudes towards functional disorders.
You can read about my research group and see my publications at my University of Edinburgh site – here
I tweet about FND @jonstoneneuro
I am cofounder, with Mark Hallett and Alan Carson, of the international FND society – www.fndsociety.org – which exists to improve health professional knowledge and education about FND
I’m sorry but I cannot undertake email correspondence with patients, I do not accept NHS referrals from outside Scotland and do not carry out private work. I do hope that the information in this website is useful to you.
I am grateful to a large and thriving community of people with FND and health professionals with a passion to improve our understanding and treatment of FND around the world.
People that have written material for this website with me include:
I started neurosymptoms.org in 2009, frustrated that there was literally NO information for my patients with FND on the internet. Since then, the FND landscape has changed dramatically. We have FND patient organisations and from 2019 the FND society for health professionals.
Neurosymptoms is used by around 50,000 people a month around the world, and is often recommended by health professionals. Its not a treatment for FND in itself, we’ve shown that in a trial – , but I hope it’s a good starting point.
The old site, was looking REALLY old, and also performed badly on mobile. In Oct 2020, Scottish Government Neurological Framework funding enabled me to work with Pooja Jain and her team at CogniHealth to improve it.
There is a lot of content now on the site that Ive co-written with colleagues. Special thanks to (Twitter handles) @AlanCarson15 @IngridHoeritza1 @lauramcw @BibaStanton @CNicholsonOT @ChristosGanos and many others who either wrote or contributed to sections.
Thank you to 434 of you that completed a survey about the site last year (65% people with FND, 24% healthcare professionals). We cant do everything we want to yet but you gave us lots of great advice.
If you don’t like change (or the new site), no worries – the old site is still accessible at the following link – http://old.neurosymptoms.org/. The alternative language sites are still hosted through there. They will be upgraded very soon So whats new? This is Phase 1 – mostly a transfer of existing material to a new desktop and mobile site as well as a brand new app that Im especially excited about – you can download it here – iphone, android/
The new save/recommender button lets patients or health professionals identify the resources that they think may be helpful and share them. Look for the SAVE icon on the site or app.
This takes you to the ‘recommender’ page so you can save items, then share them by email/airdrop/whatsapp with anyone.
As ever the site and all content is free. We are doing this because we think its needed, not for any other reason. There are some new pages in there. Ill be tweeting separately about them later this week
We want to support and complement other FND organisations and advocates. We especially want to plug @MyFNDapp run by @chris_sym which helps people with FND track their symptoms with ideas about self-management.
Everyone in the FND community brings something different and important. I hope you find the site of some help
Prof Jon Stone June 28th 2021.
We will be re-directing you to the University of Edinburgh’s donate page, which enable donations in a secure manner on our behalf. We use donations for keeping the site running and further FND research.
