What is it about?
Functional Limb Weakness is one of the commonest presentations of Functional Neurological Disorder. Patients typically develop disabling and distressing weakness or paralysis of an arm or leg which can be diagnosed using positive signs such as Hoover's sign and relates to abnormal nervous system functioning, not structural disease such as stroke. But why does this happen? This study found that adverse childhood experience was around 30-40% out of 107 people with functional limb weakness compared to about 20% out of 85 controls. The study also found that surgical operations such as appendicectomy and sterilisation were more common suggesting a vulnerability to physical symptoms. Other suggested risk factors such as personality traits, family structure or being exposed to someone with similar symptoms had a much weaker relationship. So, there are some risk factors, but they vary a lot between patients and there are none yet identified which they all share in common.