Recent advances have moved these medically unexplained or functional disorders away from a majority psychiatric understanding to an improved multidisciplinary understanding of cause and treatment.
Functional cognitive disorder (FCD) has been conceptualised as a cognitive subtype of functional neurological disorder (FND). Although FCD is understood as different from exaggerated or feigned cognitive complaints, previous accounts have provided little practical advice on how FCD can be separated from factitious or malingered cognitive complaints. Also, the distinction of FCD from other medical disorders (e.g., dementia or traumatic brain injury) or mental health disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD) that impact on cognition is an area of ongoing study and debate. Diagnostic precision is important to prevent iatrogenesis and for the development of needed treatment approaches for patients and families.
This talk addresses recent advances in understanding functional disorders generally, with an emphasis on the clinical / neuropsychological characteristics of what has come to be called functional cognitive disorder (FCD).
