Mirror therapy for phantom pain

Study: Mirror therapy for phantom pain successful

21.02.2012

Mirror therapy can help people with amputations to relieve phantom pain. Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna (MedUni) found this out by positioning eight leg amputees in front of a mirror so that only the existing leg was visible.

Amputated body part is still perceived in the brain
Experts believe that about 50 to 80 percent of people after amputations suffer from so-called phantom pain. Although a body part - usually the limbs - no longer exists, the person still feels the amputated body part. Often it is perceived as shortened or painfully twisted. In some cases, the pain is aggravated by stress, anxiety or changes in the weather.

Phantom pains occasionally occur not only after limb amputations but also after removal of parts of organs or mastectomies. People who are born with missing body parts or suffer from paralysis also report phantom pains, which are usually different.

Mirror therapy outwits the brain
Now, a team of researchers from "MedUni Vienna" succeeded in outsmarting the brains of those affected by mirror therapy and alleviating the phantom pain using eight subjects. The leg amputees completed twelve mirror therapy sessions. For this they were positioned before the game so that only the existing leg was visible. The stump of the amputated leg was not visible in the mirror. By moving the existing leg, the probands' brain was faked that the leg shown in the mirror is the second actually amputated leg. The brain assumed that both legs were still present.

In each case before the first and after the last mirror therapy session took place measurements of the brain by means of functional magnetic resonance tomography. The scientists found that the phantom pain was significantly reduced by the mirror therapy. The subjects also showed increased activity in the frontal and temporal lobes.

Study author Stefan Seidel from the Vienna University Department of Neurology reports: „These centers are not primarily responsible for the motor skills.“ Thus, after an amputation, the brain activates a "motor network" that replaces the actual motor center of the amputated limb. „The brain has changed over after some time“, summarizes Seidel. (Ag)

Picture: Peter Smola