REFERENCE · DIAGNOSIS

Diagnostic Techniques Index

This index lists pages explaining positive signs and criteria that clinicians may use when diagnosing particular FND presentations. They are written as practical briefs for future text, image and video contributors.

A positive sign is more than a normal test or the absence of another diagnosis. It is a recognizable feature—such as internal inconsistency, incongruence or preserved function under particular conditions—that supports a functional diagnosis in the right clinical setting. No page is a do-it-yourself diagnostic test, and no single sign should be used outside the wider history and examination.

Every page begins with Refers to and a scope boundary. Symptoms can appear in more than one category, but the method must match the actual appearance. A sign for unilateral leg weakness does not become a sign for facial droop, bilateral paralysis or a sudden fall merely because all may be described as “weakness.” Where no appearance-specific validated technique was located, the page says so.

Start with the shared diagnostic explanations. The first expanded symptom is functional limb weakness, with a detailed Hoover’s-sign draft and the preserved sixteen-entry inventory.

The next expanded symptom is functional tremor, with distractibility, entrainment and its preserved twelve-entry inventory. Detailed drafts do not replace the rest of the assessment.

Required time-course coverage

Every symptom page in this collection should explain the symptom’s actual temporal pattern, rather than assuming that the symptom seen in clinic is continuously present. In each of the three audience sections, the page should address:

whether that symptom may be intermittent, episodic, fluctuating, persistent or fixed, using symptom-specific evidence rather than a universal rule;
what immediate safety steps are appropriate when a familiar episode or flare begins;
what contextual information is useful to record, such as task, environment, duration, associated symptoms and recovery;
where to find the paired recovery plan, without duplicating its rehabilitation programme; and
when a new or changed episode requires reassessment rather than automatic attribution to FND.

The distinction matters. A single jerk is brief but jerks may occur in prolonged clusters; functional gait or speech symptoms may appear mainly in particular situations or around other episodes; functional dystonia may be intermittent or fixed. PPPD is different again: established PPPD is persistent by diagnostic definition, although its severity waxes and wanes and brief flares can occur.

Expansion structure

The preparation plan records shared concepts → symptom pages → clinician-focused technique pages. The baseline inventory preserves all 170 existing entries and their unequal symptom counts. Inventory entries include observations, criteria, investigations and cautions; they do not automatically become separate validated-test pages.

Pages in this collection

Each page has a linked Diagnostic techniques at a glance section. These are brief, cited inventories for staged human review, not home-testing instructions. Detailed individual technique pages remain a later, one-at-a-time task. See the collection review status for the current evidence-search limits.

A note for media contributors

The safest demonstrations usually show what a qualified clinician observes and how the observation is interpreted, not instructions for viewers to diagnose themselves. A proposed video or image should include captions or a transcript, avoid identifiable patient material without documented consent, and state what the demonstration cannot prove. Pages involving seizures, swallowing, breathing, falls or visual provocation need clinical review before filming.

Collection index created: August 25, 2026 · Functional paralysis and drop attacks added: September 2, 2026 · Clinical and accessibility review pending