Mirror Therapy in Unilateral Amputee Patients With Phantom Limb Pain.

Unlabelled: Up to 90% of amputee patients have phantom limb pain (PLP), which is difficult to treat. The aim of this study was to assess the medium and long-term efficacy of mirror therapy (MT) in unilateral amputee adults with PLP.

Methods: We carried out an uncontrolled prospective longitudinal study.

Decreasing Pain Ratings in Chronic Arm Pain Through Changing a Virtual Body: Different Strategies for Different Pain Types.

Modifying the visual aspect of a virtual arm that is felt as one's own using immersive virtual reality (VR) modifies pain threshold in healthy subjects, but does it modify pain ratings in chronic pain patients? Our aim was to investigate whether varying properties of a virtual arm co-located with the real arm modulated pain ratings in patients with chronic arm/hand pain because of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) type I (without nerve injury) or peripheral nerve injury (PNI). CRPS (n = 9) and PNI (n = 10) patients were immersed in VR and the virtual arm was shown at 4 transparency levels (transparency test) and 3 sizes (size test). We evaluated pain ratings throughout the conditions and assessed the virtual experience, finding that patients with chronic pain can achieve levels of ownership and agency over a virtual arm similar to healthy participants.