Abstract
In this Essay, Mark Edwards argues that the plight of people with functional neurological disorder within healthcare highlights a general problem with a broken paradigm of modern medicine. He argues that the passivity of the traditional sick role needs replacing with a participatory, rehabilitative medical practice.
Highlights
What if the patients most health professionals actively seek to avoid, people with “medically unexplained” or functional symptoms, were those who hold the key to a more successful, more rewarding and more just system of medical practice for all? I think they do
Let me relieve you of that burden
It makes sense that when dysfunction occurs in faculties that we most closely associate with personal will and control – movement, thoughts, feelings, those things that are the building blocks of behaviour – the actors are viewed with most suspicion
Summary
It may be tempting to just turn aside from the predicament of people with functional neurological disorder, safe perhaps in the knowledge that even though our systems may not be perfect for them, we are at least on the right track when it comes to helping people who are ill with a disease. People whose brains are made different by influences of development, disease, damage, environment and experience will be most likely to seek help for complex problems that cannot be solved within our current models of healthcare. Nor is this just a problem for neurology and psychiatry services. The real answer is obvious: consciousness breathes life into pathology, as it does to the physical and social environment This process, mediated by individual bodies and brains, gives birth to a feeling, an experience, occurring in a place and time and which is in turn changed and given new life through interaction with others who are conscious. The ideal of rehabilitation is like a positive to the negative of illness, the perfect mirror, matching every edge and surface, able to sense and influence every aspect
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
