VR Cures Amputees' Phantom Limb Pain

An anonymous reader writes, "Scientists have developed a virtual world like Second Life where real-life amputees have their limbs restored. The experience can cure patients of the perception of pain in their missing limbs. From the article: 'The machine is designed to combat phantom limb pain (PLP) — a sensation of pain experienced by an amputee that appears to originate in the missing limb. Intriguingly, researchers have discovered that if a person's brain can be tricked into believing they can see and move a "phantom limb," this motion reduces the perception of pain in PLP.' The graphics used by the computer look very crude, almost comically so, but apparently the system works."

Comments

How available is this?

[waif69]

I RTFA, and saw no reference to availability. This doesn't seem to be very expensive, in medical cost comparatively. Anyone have experience with this technology, here?

Re:Mirrors in a Box

[mendaliv]

Sounds like someone's trying to build a better mousetrap.

I can see very little to no advantage of this over the mirrors in a box method that you describe... the therapist speaking to the patient could be done with a recording, or with practice the patient could learn to accomplish this themselves through meditation. So the entire argument that this VR method is better because it can be done in the patient's home is largely invalid. A box with mirrors and a tape deck is going to be significantly cheaper than a VR headset, glove and computer.

The only advantage that I might entertain is that if the person is a multiple amputee (i.e., no arms or no legs or something like that), then maybe you could substitute movement from some other body part (i.e., head and neck, or facial twitches) to cause limb movement in the VR environment, where a series of mirrors would not permit this.

what about double amputees?

[maddogsparky]

Lots of posters are mentioning the mirror trick. Unfortunately, that won't work with some double amputees (i.e. portions of both arms or both legs amputated). This seems like it might help in these cases if they have some way to provide input corresponding to the phantom limb.

But then...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...you jack out of the system, and your limb is gone again. Sounds kind of depressing. I think I'd rather just take an Advil. I mean, the *pain* is real so a pain killer should do something.

Re:visualization

[Puff of Logic]

Actually, it can be done with a cardboard box and a mirror. If I recall correctly, V.S. Ramachandran detailed performing precisely the same technique in his book Phantoms of the Brain for patients who had a phantom hand that was painfully clenched into a tight fist.

In essence, he had the box and the mirror positioned such that the patient would insert his good arm into the box and have the amputated arm stump occluded. Obviously, a reflected image of the unamputated limb would appear in the mirror to the patient, who was then instructed to position the "phantom limb" such that it superimposed the mirror image. This done, the patient was then instructed to repeatedly clench and declench both hands.

Obviously only one hand was real, but the correlation between what the brain felt was happening and what the eyes reported was happening was sufficient to fool the brain into believing that the phantom fist had been unclenched and thus the phantom limb pain was eliminated. I believe that Ramachandran reported excellent success with this ingenious medical hack.

Re:What if...???

[nido]

Donna Eden talks about treating phantom limb pain in Energy Medicine.

Unbearable Phantom Pain A good-looking man who had lost both of his legs in Vietnam was brought to me in a wheelchair. No one had been able to help with the pain at the end of where his right foot had been. He vividly recalled the scene of stepping on a land mine and watching the bones and flesh of his right foot explode into pieces. The pain he now had was massive. The sensations were so similar to the original shock that he could never get relief from the traumatic memories. The relentless pain also led to terrible nightmares. His left foor wasn't as painful. It sometimes itched, but it was a mild discomfort compared with the area of his right foot.

As he sat there with his friend, he cried and said, "The pain is so excruciating, and the way it keeps me tied to my past is so bad, that I sometimes think of taking a gun to my head." I could see the energy still there in both of his absent legs, and I could feel it with my hands. I followed the energy along his absent legs to the end of where his feet had been. It was palpable. My hand began to hurt terribly. I asked him if my hand was in the area of the worst pain, and it was. The most painful areas were at the sides of his feet, which happens to be at the end of the bladder meridian. I said to him, "This may sound crazy to you, but I believe I can hold some points in midair hwere your feet were and help you."

I moved my hands to the ends of his legs, where his feet had been, and held the points on the bladder meridian. As the two men watched thses strange conjurings, it must have seemed to them that I was just holding air. But I was not! I felt and saw the meridian lines as strongly as if his legs were still there. At first it was painful for him to have me touch the area of his absent right foot. After a couple of minutes, he reported that not only was the foot being relieved of the pain, but another chronic pain in his back, just above his waist, was also lifting. Interestingly, that area is also goverened by the bladder meridian.

His kidney and liver meridians were also involved, and I held those points as well. ... By the time I had finished holding his liver points, he was pain free. I showed the friend, who lived with him, how to hold points and which points to hold. The man and his friend never returned, but on my invitation they called me about once a month. The friend told me that after the session, the manbegan to lift out of his deep depression. While the phantom pain would return every now and then, they knew how to deal with it.

-pg 31-32

I'm sure someone will come along and scoff - "haha, meridians, quackery". Whatever. Western science has established that Accupuncture works well. Western science knows that bodies generate mild electric fields - never impulses, etc. Western science knows that there is electrical behavior when bones are broken, and has devices to apply electric fields to speed healing thereof. The body's energy systems are all closely associated with physical systems - each of the chakras corresponds with a gland: thymus, pituitary, etc. Energetic approaches to health really shouldn't be such a streach, but in a medical system dominated by the rockefeller drug cartel I'm not surprised that affordable approaches such as Mrs. Eden's are suppressed and ridiculed.

While Donna does not take clients anymore (she started teaching when demand for her services became too great), her senior teaching assistants are all quite capable. She has a list on her website.

Your father might benefit from Osteopathic manipulation too.