Easing phantom limb pain can be as simple as looking in the mirror.
Scientists who have mapped how mirror therapy changes the brain may now be able to predict just how much treatment will ease a particular patient’s pain.
Phantom limb pain – feeling intense pain in a missing limb – happens to more than 90% of amputees and can start just 24 hours after surgery. Drugs don’t work well.
Mirror therapy – symmetrical exercises in a mirror where patients “see” their phantom limb move as if it were really there – has long been used to treat it.
