Gary Goldberg, M.D., professor of PM&R, McGuire VA Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia, discusses symptoms beyond mechanism: A patient-centered approach to conversion disorder.
KATHRYN A. STOLP, MD: Hi, I'm Kate Stolp, part of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mayo Clinic. And this is our second annual neurorehabilitation summit. And I'm here today to introduce to you one of our keynote speakers for our summit this year, Dr. Gary Goldberg. Dr. Goldberg is Professor of PM&R at Virginia Commonwealth University and the associated VA Hospital there and came to talk to us about some interesting perspectives on patients with difficult symptoms, specifically conversion disorders. GARY GOLDBERG, MD: It was a pleasure coming in and participating in the Mayo Clinic Neurorehabilitation Summit. My presentation was based on a discussion of what we do as medical providers when patients present with symptoms that we do not have a clear medical explanation for. And a general approach to conversion disorder as well as medically unexplained physical symptoms in terms of how we orient ourselves around the treatment of individuals who are presented with these conditions. And particularly how rehabilitation, as it's configured as a collaborative team-oriented treatment environment is particularly conducive to assisting individuals with conversion disorder and medically unexplained physical symptoms to achieve maximal function in spite of the lack of a clear medical explanation for their underlying disorder.
