Neurology Minute

In the second episode of this two-part series, Dr. Stacey Clardy and Dr. John Ney discuss why deaths from neurologic conditions are decreasing, but disability is rising, and what this shift means for future care. 
Show citation: 
Ney JP, Steinmetz JD, Anderson-Benge E, et al. US Burden of Disorders Affecting the Nervous System: From the Global Burden of Disease 2021 Study. JAMA Neurol. 2026;83(1):20-34. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.4470 
Show transcript: 
Dr. Stacey Clardy:
Hi, this is Stacey Clardy from the Salt Lake City VA and the University of Utah. I've been talking with John Ney from Yale about why neurologic disease now represents the top source of disability in the United States. John, for the minute, deaths from neurologic conditions are declining overall, right? But disability is increasing. So what does that shift mean for how we, the health system, should be planning for neurologic care?
Dr. John Ney:
I would say overall, both deaths and disability are increasing as a function of greater life expectancy in the population and, then relative to 1990, a greater increase in population of 50 million individuals came into the US either through birth or immigration during that time. So both of those are going up when we actually look by adjusting for age and per 100,000 individuals, both are actually going down, but not at a rate that we would like. So I think there's a lot more work to do.
Dr. Stacey Clardy:
Understood. Amongst our growing population, neurologic disability is still the leading cause and not less of a problem.
For more details, we really get into the specifics and break this down by states even, take a listen to the full-length neurology podcast. And also check out the paper, it is packed with all of the data. It's in JAMA Neurology. It's titled: US Burden of Disorders Affecting the Nervous System from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 study.

Dr. Tesha Monteith and Dr. Michael Eller discuss the implications of CGRP therapies in migraine treatment, particularly for patients with vascular risk factors or a history of stroke. 
Show citation:
Eller MT, Schwarzová K, Gufler L, et al. CGRP-Targeted Migraine Therapies in Patients With Vascular Risk Factors or Stroke: A Review. Neurology. 2025;105(2):e213852. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000213852 
Show transcript: 
Dr. Tesha Monteith:
Hi, this is Tesha Monteith with the Neurology Minute. I've just been speaking with Michael Eller from the Department of Neurology Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria on the neurology podcast on his paper, CGRP Targeted Migraine Therapies in Patients with Vascular Risk Factors or Stroke: A Review.
Hi, Michael.
Dr. Michael Eller:
Hello.
Dr. Tesha Monteith:
Why don't you summarize your general approach to use of CGRP targeted therapies in patients that might be at risk for vascular events when considering safety?
Dr. Michael Eller:
Yeah. About acute vascular events, we should stop CGLP targeted drugs immediately. When we come to post-stroke, we should reassess the necessity of these targeted treatments after recovery. We suggest a minimum of three months pause after ischemic stroke to allow early recovery and remodeling, and then restart only after individualized benefit risk review.
In high-risk primary prevention, so no stroke yet, but elevated risk, if the patients are 65 years or older with established cardiovascular disease, we should prefer traditional preventives. And if CGLP targeted therapy is essential, we should consider Gepants cautiously due to their shorter half lives.
We should avoid CGLP targeted treatments in small vessel disease, distal stenosis, Raynaud's phenomenon, and uncontrolled hypertension. For acute migraine treatment, we can consider gepants or ditans as alternatives to triptans and NSAIDs in relevant stroke risk or post-stroke patients, individualized to comorbidities.
Dr. Tesha Monteith:
Great.
And we should say that the label updates include hypertension and Raynaud's phenomenon as potential vascular complications. Otherwise, these are more theoretical risks based on what we know about CGRP.
Dr. Michael Eller:
Yes, I totally agree because large studies did not show any elevated cardiovascular risk signals. And for post-marketing databases, we did not see any elevated cardiovascular risk so far. However, in pre-clinical settings, studies showed large infarct size in pretreated mice.
Dr. Tesha Monteith:
Great. Well, thank you again for doing this work. It was a phenomenal read and congratulations.
Dr. Michael Eller:
Thank you.
Dr. Tesha Monteith:
This is Tesha Monteith. Thank you for listening to the Neurology Minute.

In part one of this two-part series, Dr. Stacey Clardy and Dr. John Ney break down the key message neurologists need to understand from this update and offer guidance on how to clearly convey it to patients.
Show citation: 
Ney JP, Steinmetz JD, Anderson-Benge E, et al. US Burden of Disorders Affecting the Nervous System: From the Global Burden of Disease 2021 Study. JAMA Neurol. 2026;83(1):20-34. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.4470 
Show transcript: 
Dr. Stacey Clardy:
Hi, this is Stacey Clardy from the Salt Lake City VA in the University of Utah. I've been talking with John Ney from Yale about a global burden of disease analysis showing that disorders affecting nervous system health are the leading cause of disability in the United States. This is probably not too surprising to any neurologist, but very important that they rigorously went through to prove what we experience in clinics.
So John, for the Minute, when neurologists do hear it though, when they hear it out loud that more than half of the US population is affected by neurologic conditions, we're still a little skeptical. That's one in two, right? What's the single most important thing we need to understand about how that number was calculated and how to communicate it to our patients and our communities?
Dr. John Ney:
It's not just the sum of all conditions added up and then translated into the entire population. It's really looking at unique persons with a condition affecting the nervous system. And certainly our top two are tension type headache and migraine, but then we also get into diabetic neuropathy with 17 million individuals, stroke and Alzheimer's with six million and five million respectively. So individuals, unique persons may have more than one of these conditions, but 180 million or more persons in the United States or 54% of the population actually has at least one of these conditions.
Dr. Stacey Clardy:
So important that we understand this, these numbers. This matters to our patients when we're explaining it to them. Sometimes they feel alone, but this really also matters when we're talking about what we need for our patients as neurologists, more research, more resources.
If you want to learn more, listen to the full-length podcast. We get into the discussion, even breaking it down by states and conditions, and a bit more of the health economics and what informs these numbers. And also check out the paper in JAMA Neurology. It's titled US Burden of Disorders Affecting the Nervous System from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 Study.

In part two of this four-part series, Casey Kozak discusses Hover's sign, the most well-known test for FND. 
Show transcript: 
Casey Kozak: 
Welcome back to Neurology Minute. My name is Casey Kozak with Rutgers, and today we're continuing our examination of functional neurological disorder. That is physical examination. This episode is dedicated to Hoover's sign, probably the most well-known test for FND, and in my humble opinion, one of the most confusing maneuvers to learn.
So today, we're going back to the origin using Dr. Charles Franklin Hoover's original description. Maybe you've heard of Hoover's Sign, but when do we use it? Hoover's sign is useful when a patient presents with one-sided lower extremity weakness, and FND is on the differential. Because the test relies on one healthy leg, you can't perform Hoover's test on a patient with total lower-body paralysis.
Now, how to perform Hoover's test. First, have the patient lie on their back and place their hand under the heel of the patient's weak leg. Then ask the patient to raise their strong leg off the plane of the bed. What do you expect to happen? Dr. Hoover made the astute observation that muscular resistance offered by the leg on the bed will be pressed onto the bed with the same force which is exhibited in lifting the strong leg off the bed. This is based on the principle that when one limb flexes, the contralateral limb extends. In this way, the leg on the bed acts as a sort of counterbalance to assist the action of raising the other leg.
Okay, but what does this mean for our examination? Well, if a patient's leg was paralyzed as the result of a stroke, for example, the patient would not be able to create that downward resistance. In a patient with functional leg weakness, however, this action is still possible. Therefore, Hoover's sign is present if the weak leg produces a downward force into the bed while the strong leg is lifted, which you will be able to feel as their heel pressing into your hand.
So to summarize, you're looking for a down pressure from the patient's weak leg when you ask them to raise their unaffected leg.
Time to break for some practice. Join us in our next episode when we'll look at some other helpful maneuvers for functional weakness.

In part one of this four-part series, Casey Kozak breaks down tremors observed during the physical examination of FND. 
Show transcript: 
Casey Kozak:
Welcome back to Neurology Minute. This is Casey Kozak with Rutgers, and today we'll be discussing a very important and evolving topic, that is Functional Neurological Disorder, or FND. If you're a regular fan of the Minute, you'll have already heard a great miniseries on FND by Jon Stone and Gabriela Gilmour, which focuses on diagnosis and treatment. If you haven't listened yet, I encourage you to check it out. In this series, we're going to focus in on physical exam findings associated with FND to help you excel on the floors.
Talking about the physical exam, it's important to keep in mind that FND looks different for every patient. However, some general characteristics of symptoms may include inconsistency, variability, selectivity of impairment, meaning mismatch of impairment with different tasks, distractibility, suggestibility, and incongruence with symptoms seen in other neurological disorders. Since tremors are one of the most common presentations of FND, we'll start there.
Even while taking their history, you may notice features consistent with FND. And in fact, this is a great time to make natural observations of the patient and their symptoms. Unlike tremors associated with degenerative movement disorders like Parkinson's, functional tremors may exhibit variability of frequency and amplitude, especially during periods of shifted attention. You can further evaluate the tremor using the entrainment test. To perform the entrainment test, ask the patient to make a tapping motion. As the patient taps, look for a change in frequency in their tremor. The frequency of the tremor may begin to match the frequency of the patient's tapping. Any change in the tremor while the patient is tapping is considered a positive finding.
Alternatively, you can also test the whack-a-mole sign. To elicit the whack-a-mole sign, the examiner holds down the tremulous body part while looking for the emergence of a tremor in a different body part. This finding is consistent with a functional tremor, as tremors related to neurodegenerative diseases do not jump limbs. Let's break now to practice. Join us again for our next episode where we will turn to functional weakness. See you then.