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Project Fionigan
A plain-language page about FND, communication access, and how Project Fionigan helps keep a patient’s story together when lived explanation becomes difficult.
Project Fionigan keeps fragmented FND information connected, source-linked, and human-readable when lived communication becomes difficult.
New to FND? Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is a real neurological condition that affects how the brain sends and receives signals, which can cause problems with movement, speech, sensation, thinking, or seizure-like episodes. NIH/NINDS overview.
I am not learning how to have FND. I am learning how to have FND publicly.
FIRST AND FOREMOST
This is a medical journey with family in the boat.
The starting point is a real person living a medical and accessibility journey. Family is in the boat too. Project Fionigan is the navigation layer for that boat: it helps keep the medical journey, documents, questions, access needs, and next steps from scattering.
The website, overlay, pages, documents, and conference materials are context around that journey. The public version stays de-identified and informational.
Public de-identification
Public version is de-identified
Patient-specific names, provider names, facility names, email addresses, record identifiers, exact identifying routes, and raw source records are removed or generalized in this public website version.
Objective source status
Source document status
Open the source-status index to see what is already on the site, what is staged privately, and what still needs upload or redaction.
About Project Fionigan
Project Fionigan began as an accessibility-first continuity framework. This regular page view shows the same material in a familiar website structure.
Project Fionigan is a plain-language, all-inclusive accessibility-first continuity program
Project Fionigan was used to organize the poster, handout, website, emails, updates, downloads, and public explanation for this conference.
This is not only an idea being described. It is being used in real time when fine motor control, typing, speaking, or lived explanation become harder to rely on.
First and foremost, this work is for family, for the medical journey, for finding the right doctor, and for continuing to search for answers.
Project Fionigan helps keep the order, documents, corrections, questions, and next steps in one place when typing or speaking gets hard.
Origin bridge: music, access, and continuity
Before Project Fionigan carried meaning through structured continuity, similar work was already happening through music. Music can carry timing, emotion, communication, pattern, and participation when ordinary channels are not enough.
Project Fionigan extends that same access idea into FND navigation, medical continuity, and patient communication support.
Human input. Computer-assisted processing. Human review.
Project Fionigan helps organize information without removing human control. People provide the source material, computer tools help sort and format it, and a person reviews, corrects, and approves what moves forward.
- Human input
- Computer-assisted processing
- Source preservation
- Human review and correction
- Controlled release
Computer-assisted processing may include AI tools, but nothing is treated as final until a person reviews and approves it.
All-inclusive accessibility note
This page is built in plain language with an all-inclusive accessibility-first design so it is easier to use when reading, typing, speaking, or fine motor control is difficult.
Use the TL;DR first, then move section by section. The deeper details are below for anyone who wants them. The page supports keyboard navigation, readable spacing, image descriptions, and reduced-motion settings.
Trying to understand FND
FND is still a learning journey. Understanding grows over time, and there is still more to learn every day.
The conference showed that prior presentation experience does not prevent an FND-related communication breakdown. A person may know the setting and still be unable to continue the same way physically.
Clinicians can also miss important parts of the FND picture. When the patient is still learning and the clinician does not have the full FND context either, things can break down quickly.
FND patients may recognize patterns faster than they can organize or explain them out loud. Project Fionigan helps slow the information down into something readable, reviewable, and easier to explain without losing the thread.
This page became a lived report
This page started as the poster and handout online. As the conference situation changed, it became a lived report of what was happening.
That is the point of the one-page report: when things change, the most important information stays together instead of getting lost.
The page became the place where information could be read back, organized, and kept together when lived explanation was not reliable.
This was not a lack of presentation experience
Prior presentation experience matters. This was not unfamiliar territory, stage fright, or confusion about the room. The setting was understood, and the attention of the room was not the problem.
The problem was not stage fright or not knowing how to present. The body would not allow the presentation to continue in the expected way.
That difference matters. A person can know what they are trying to say and still need a backup way to communicate when the body interrupts the explanation.
Gratitude
Thank you to the FNDS Society
Thank you to the FNDS Society, the conference team, reviewers, organizers, volunteers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and attendees who made space for this poster.
Baltimore brought real human connection through conversations with people living with FND, studying FND, treating FND, and advocating around FND. Those conversations are part of the project’s development.
Project Fionigan is not only about records. It is about people, access, communication, and helping important information follow the patient.