Unravelling functional neurology: a critical review of clinical research articles on the effect or benefit of the functional neurology approach

Abstract

Given the diversity of symptoms and disorders that “functional neurologists” claim to deal with, ranging from musculoskeletal to neurodegenerative, this approach would have the potential to improve the quality of life of many people. [...]FN interests many practitioners [2, 3], including chiropractors, a profession in which this approach may well be spreading. [...]at this step, any full text clinical research studies regarding FN effect or benefit could be included, regardless their study design, i.e. appropriate or not to investigate an intervention effect or benefit but case reports, narrative reviews and discussion papers were not included for the reasons explained above. [...]the results seem encouraging and might incite a future proper randomized control trial, as suggested by the author. [...]this study could be considered an interesting preliminary study, to see if the topic is worthwhile being pursued, but does not allow the author to deal with any effect or benefit of the tested intervention, i.e. pneumatic ear insufflation in the treatment of migraine. In light of these methodological short comings, we did not consider the results of these studies dependable. [...]we found no acceptable evidence that could support the notion that the FN approach has an effect or a benefit on the supposed indications tested, whether this was done on symptomatic or asymptomatic subjects.