Dr Steven Allder

Dr Allder’s main clinical focus is traumatic brain injury (TBI), and functional neurological disorders (FND). With respect to TBI, Dr Allder provides a clinical and medicolegal services for the assessment of patients with TBI across the whole spectrum of injury severity i.e moderate – severe to mild; and across diverse aetiologies of TBI i.e. civilian, sport’s and military.

Recognition Health, are completing a 4 years collaboration with the Aston Brain Centre looking at the clinical utility of Magnetoencephalography (MEG) in TBI, especially mTBI where MRI including DTI is normal. This has been a successful collaboration which will lead to the development of several improved diagnostic tools for mild TBI . The collaboration has also led to further projects across a wide spectrum of TBI aetiologies, engaging new partnerships with Nottingham University, Toronto Sick kids, and several commercial organisations.

Since 2020, Dr Allder and Recognition Health have developed a new primary academic collaboration with King’s College Hospital. This joint work is exploring two complementary areas.  Firstly, the utility of more sophisticated MRI sequences to further enhance diagnostic and pathophysiological insights into mild TBI, especially sports related TBI. Secondly, we are exploring how deployment of state-of-the-art neuro-computational techniques can reveal the mechanisms underlying how structural injury from TBI creates the clinical profiles seen in these conditions. It is hoped this will lead to improved treatment strategies.

With respect to Functional Neurological Disorder Dr Allder has long standing interest and is a founding member of the FND Society. Dr Allder offers a clinical and medicolegal service for the assessment of patients with suspected FND. Dr Allder has a long-standing collaboration with Dr Leo Russell and Prof Allan Abbass, who are leading practitioners and researchers in a treatment modality for FND termed Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP). ISTDP is modality with a strong neuroscience rationale and empirical  evidence base supporting its effectiveness. Dr Russell has recently joined Recognition Health and is working with Dr Allder to enhance our clinical offering for this patient group and extend research into the mechanisms by with this treatment modality creates improvements for patients

Recent publications

Allder, S and MacSweeney, E. Recent developments in Neuro-Imaging for Traumatic Brain Injury. Journal of Personal Injury Law (in Press)

Russell, L., Abbass, A., Allder, S A Review of the Treatment of Functional Neurological Disorder with Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). Archives of Medical Psychology (submitted)

Allder S, Post Traumatic Pain – A Neurological Perspective. Pain News (in press)

Bigler & Allder  Traumatic Brain Injury, Neural Networks and Neuroimaging: Practical Approaches for the Neurorehabilitation Clinician. NeuroRehabilitation (in press)

Bigler, E. D., & Allder, S. (2021). Neuroimaging in functional outcome. N.Y.: Springer.

Hall M, Allder S and Furlong P. Resting state and task induced oscillations in chronic post-concussion syndrome: A pilot study. 21st International Conference on Biomagnetism (BIOMAG), Philadelphia, PA, USA, August 26-30, 2018

Russell, L., Abbass, A., Allder, S. and Noborsky, R., Applying intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy to the treatment of medically unexplained symptoms: integrating theories of cause and theories of change, Archives of Medical Psychology, August 2017 (Volume 9, Issue 1), 1-24.

Russell, L.A., Abbass, A.A., Allder, S.J., A pilot study of reduction in healthcare costs following the application of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, Epilepsy & Behaviour 63 (2016) 17-19.

Education

He trained in Nottingham in general medicine and carried out his specialist neurology training at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Allder’s main interests are the management of acute neurological emergencies, in particular cerebrovascular disease and traumatic brain injury. Dr Allder ran a general neurology outpatient practice during his NHS work and had specific sub-specialist interest in neuro-otology (assessment of dizzy patients), neurological pain syndromes and medically unexplained symptoms.