Sixty percent of patients want to discuss faith with their doctor, but neurologists rarely ask

Kirk Hall has Parkinson's disease. He is also a man of faith. In a new paper published in Neurology Clinical Practice, he writes about his diagnosis with a frankness that cuts through the clinical language surrounding him. He does not see his disease as separate from his beliefs. For Hall, faith is not an add-on to coping. It is the foundation of it.

His perspective is not unusual. Research suggests that roughly 60% of American adults want their religious or spiritual concerns acknowledged in a medical setting. Yet study after study shows that clinicians, neurologists included, almost never raise the subject. The reasons are familiar: discomfort, lack of training, limited appointment time.

Why neurology is different

The paper, authored by researchers from UCLA Health, the University of Colorado, Harvard Medical School, and Brown University, argues that neurology has a particular obligation to engage with spirituality. The diseases neurologists treat do not simply impair function. They erode identity.

Parkinson's strips away motor control and, eventually, cognitive sharpness. Dementia dismantles memory and personality. Epilepsy brings unpredictability to daily life. These conditions attack the capacities that people use to define who they are: their ability to move, remember, communicate, and plan.

Lead author Dr. Indu Subramanian, a movement disorders neurologist at UCLA and the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, puts it directly: a patient's spirituality is often central to how they cope, find meaning, and make decisions about treatment. It is not peripheral to medical care. For many patients, it is the lens through which they interpret everything a physician tells them.

Two questions, two minutes

A key contribution of the paper is its insistence that spiritual assessment need not be burdensome. The authors recommend a two-question screen that takes less than two minutes. The first question asks whether spirituality or faith is important to the patient in thinking about their health. The second asks whether they have, or would like, someone to talk to about those concerns.

That's it. No theological training required. No extended conversations about doctrine.

For clinicians who prefer a less direct entry point, the paper suggests open-ended alternatives. Questions like "What do I need to know about you as a person to give you the best care possible?" or "Where do you draw your strength from?" can open the door without naming religion explicitly.

The authors also describe the FICA framework (Faith, Importance, Community, Address), a structured tool for taking a more detailed spiritual history when the initial screen suggests it would be helpful. And they list phrases that may signal unaddressed spiritual distress: statements like "Why is this happening to me?" or "I've lost touch with my faith since this diagnosis."

The evidence for paying attention

The case is not purely philosophical. The paper draws on a body of research linking spiritual support to measurable outcomes. Unaddressed spiritual distress has been associated with poorer quality of life in patients with serious illness. Conversely, spiritual support has been linked to improved coping, stronger patient-clinician relationships, and better alignment around treatment goals.

The paper situates these findings within a biopsychosocial-spiritual model of care, an expansion of the biopsychosocial framework that has been standard in medical education for decades. This expanded model, endorsed by multiple major medical organizations, treats spirituality as a distinct and measurable dimension of health alongside physical, psychological, and social factors.

Generalists, not counselors

Subramanian emphasizes that neurologists do not need to act as spiritual counselors. The goal is to function as "spiritual generalists" who can identify a patient's needs, validate their beliefs, and make appropriate referrals to chaplains, psychotherapists, or community faith leaders when warranted.

This distinction matters. Physicians often cite discomfort with the topic as a reason for avoidance, fearing they will be expected to engage in conversations they are not trained to handle. The paper's argument is that the bar for entry is much lower than most clinicians assume. Recognizing that a patient is struggling spiritually, and connecting them with the right support, does not require expertise in theology.

Benefits that flow both directions

The paper also addresses something less commonly discussed: the potential benefit to clinicians themselves. Studies cited in the paper indicate that spiritual care training is associated with reduced burnout, lower work-related stress, and improved well-being among physicians. The authors argue that practicing medicine in a way that attends to patients' full humanity may help neurologists find greater meaning in their own work.

This is a paper about a gap that nearly everyone acknowledges exists but few have tried to close with practical tools. Its core message is simple. Most patients with neurological diseases want to be asked about their spiritual lives. The asking takes two minutes. The not-asking has measurable costs. And the tools to close that gap already exist.