{"title":"Hoover's sign is a sign of functional weakness: or is it more?","authors":"Jan Coebergh","doi":"10.1136/pn-2024-004385","DOIUrl":"10.1136/pn-2024-004385","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hoover's sign has long been used to support a clinical diagnosis of functional weakness. However, it also occurs in people with pain, other functional disorders and functional neurological disorder without weakness. Some of its clinical characteristics, such as being more prominent with visual attention, suggest it might be reframed as a sign of agency. The experience, reflections and awareness of people with an abnormal Hoover's sign can be seen in this context. Reframing Hoover's sign by linking it to agency, and extending it to other clinical scenarios, could help clinicians and, most importantly, patients.A recently discovered clinical technique of inducing it briefly in healthy people with pressure on the patella or tonic vibration is discussed. This illustrates the importance of sensory processing (especially sensory attenuation and proprioception) and learning/habituation to stimuli, which is known to be altered in functional neurological disorder and other functional disorders.Reframing Hoover's sign by linking it to agency and extending it to other clinical scenarios could help clinicians, neuroscience and, most importantly, patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":39343,"journal":{"name":"PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY","volume":" ","pages":"260-261"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143411005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neurological Sweet's syndrome: a rare but treatable manifestation of an autoinflammatory disease.","authors":"Gareth Zigui Lim, Jiekai Tan, Joyce Siong-See Lee, Xin Rong Lim, Tianrong Yeo","doi":"10.1136/pn-2024-004379","DOIUrl":"10.1136/pn-2024-004379","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sweet's syndrome is an autoinflammatory disease characterised by systemic symptoms and a cutaneous neutrophilic dermatosis. Neurological involvement is rare but important to recognise. Patients may have headache, confusion, seizures, and focal neurological deficits; MR brain scanning may show widespread T2-hyperintense lesions, with a CSF pleocytosis. Clinicians should suspect neurological Sweet's syndrome in patients with central nervous system dysfunction, who have unexplained fever or systemic inflammation, and a pustular neutrophilic dermatosis. The condition responds well to corticosteroids, which can prevent long-term neurological sequalae.</p>","PeriodicalId":39343,"journal":{"name":"PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY","volume":" ","pages":"253-256"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142773227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Prolonged disorder of consciousness: giving a second opinion on the best interests of a person.","authors":"Derick T Wade","doi":"10.1136/pn-2024-004273","DOIUrl":"10.1136/pn-2024-004273","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Patients with a prolonged disorder of consciousness have a neurological disorder. Few neurologists undertake assessment and management after the acute phase of the person's illness, even though some of their patients with progressive neurological disorders become persistently unconscious. Their clinical evaluation and deciding on their best interests require full use of a neurologist's expertise, which is intellectually, emotionally and clinically challenging. I will cover essential aspects of giving such an expert second opinion based on at least 200 cases where I have done so (and over 500 patients seen clinically).</p>","PeriodicalId":39343,"journal":{"name":"PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY","volume":" ","pages":"241-245"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Manuel Alcalá Ramírez Del Puerto, Maddalena Elena Urbano, Pablo Abizanda Saro, Adela María Maruri Pérez, Vicente Gajate García
{"title":"Mediterranean spotted fever presenting with rash and meningism.","authors":"José Manuel Alcalá Ramírez Del Puerto, Maddalena Elena Urbano, Pablo Abizanda Saro, Adela María Maruri Pérez, Vicente Gajate García","doi":"10.1136/pn-2024-004438","DOIUrl":"10.1136/pn-2024-004438","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39343,"journal":{"name":"PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY","volume":" ","pages":"284-285"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142927606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A bedside sensory phenomenon that can help explain functional sensory symptoms.","authors":"Stoyan Popkirov","doi":"10.1136/pn-2024-004456","DOIUrl":"10.1136/pn-2024-004456","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Explaining basic illness mechanisms is an important step in communicating functional neurological symptoms. Clinical signs for motor symptoms, such as the Hoover test, have proven an excellent basis for mechanistic explanations. Here, I recommend a simple technique for eliciting tingling sensations through directed bodily attention, as a helpful experiential starting point for explanations of sensory gating and somatosensory amplification in patients with functional hyperaesthesia, paraesthesia and chronic pain.</p>","PeriodicalId":39343,"journal":{"name":"PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY","volume":" ","pages":"262-263"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142967235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}