Phantom Limb

Phantom limb pain refers to pain felt in the area in which a limb has been amputated, and it may range in intensity from very mild to severe and debilitating. It occurs because the nerve endings at the site of amputation send messages to the brain and trick the brain into believing that the amputated limb is still present.

Mirror therapy: The patient sits with a mirror facing the remaining leg, moves the remaining leg and watches the reflection in the mirror, so that it appears that both the good and the amputated leg are moving. by using this technique decrease opioid use, decrease painful phantom pain sensations, and help the wounded veterans return to work.

Ronald Melzack, PhD, famed for inventing the gate theory of pain, recently proposed a unifying theory of self-perception and pain which provides some insight into how Dr. Tsao's technique works (mirror therapy). Basically, Dr. Melzack points out that what we feel, pain or not, comes from the brain. Phantom limb pain shows that while what we feel can be influenced and modulated by input from the body, the brain's processes can act in the absence of any such input. Thus, everything we experience lies in neural networks in the brain. This is a hard-wired, genetic process. Melzack hypotheses that the shooting phantom pains that Dr. Tsao's patients felt are caused by the brain attempting to move the absent limb, sending out abnormal neural patterns which are experienced as shooting pain.