Curing Phantom Pains In Amputee Victims

DNews

One of the most common complaints from amputee victims is the feeling of phantom pain -- feeling the missing limb but not being able to see or control it. Exactly what causes phantom pain is unknown, but it's likely a result of the brain still recognizing the limb even though it's no longer there.Despite the frequency of this problem, there's no one method of dealing with the pain that works for all amputees.But an experimental study , detailed in the journal Frontiers for Neuroscience, soothed one man's chronic phantom pain after 48 years of suffering by allowing him to not only see a virtual representation of the limb, but also to control it using electrodes attached to the base of the missing limb that measured muscle movement. The patient reported a drastic improvement in his phantom pain.The therapy needs to undergo more tests before it can be more widely used in treatment.