What is Functional
Neurology?
Traditional medical care is essential for diagnosing and managing emergencies, structural disease, stroke, tumors, seizures, and other conditions that may require medication, imaging, surgery, or medical specialty care. Functional neurology focuses on people who have been medically evaluated but still experience persistent symptoms or functional limitations.
Many neurological symptoms do not always show up clearly on routine imaging or standard laboratory testing. A person may be told that testing is “normal” yet continue to struggle with headaches, motion sensitivity, fatigue, poor concentration, dizziness, or difficulty returning to work, school, exercise, or daily life. In fact, most of our patients have been told that “it’s all in your head” by more than a few people before they see us. Functional neurology focuses on measuring and addressing how neurological systems are functioning—not merely whether a major structural problem is present.
What to expect at your exam?
No two patients are the same. Two people can come in with the exact same symptoms, but have two completely different reasons for those symptoms. That’s why every patient is given a comprehensive evaluation to give us the best probability of achieving relief.
Your evaluation may assess areas such as:
• Eye movements, visual tracking, and visual-motion sensitivity
• Balance, posture, coordination, and gait
• Vestibular or inner-ear function
• Brain-body communication, reflexes, and sensory processing
• Neck, jaw, muscle, and movement contributions
• Cognitive performance, reaction time, attention, and tolerance for activity
• Nutrition, sleep, stress, inflammation, and other lifestyle factors that can influence neurological resilience
Instead of applying the same protocol to every patient, we use those findings to select the right therapies, set an appropriate starting intensity, and adjust care as your nervous system changes.
Functional Neurology is on the Cutting-Edge of
Health Care
Functional neurology is a field of study that achieves successful results by applying current neuroscience in an office setting. This means that our doctors take current neuroscience from the research laboratory and devising ways of applying that research in the office to treat patients.
The following is a list of health conditions people have shown significant improvement with:
- Arm/shoulder pain
- Balance disorders
- Bulging/herniated discs
- Dizziness
- Dysautonomia
- Dystonia
- Early Alzheimer’s symptoms
- Fibromyalgia
- Headaches
- Hip/knee/feet pain
- Insomnia
- Low back pain/sciatica
- Migraines
- MS Symptoms
- Neck pain
- Numbness
- Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)
- RLS (restless leg syndrome)
- Spinal Stenosis
- Tremor Disorders
If you have been suffering with pain, headaches, dizziness, POTS, or others conditions and still need answers, Harcourt Brain Center is the place for you! To request an appointment, call 717-483-8734 today!