Teaser:
One of Ramachandran's patients complained that he was suffering from an excruciating cramping in his phantom arm. He felt that his phantom hand was clenched so tightly, he could feel his fingernails digging into his phantom palm. The patient was in no way delusional. He knew his arm had been amputated and that the pain was emanating from a nonexistent limb. Yet his grasp of this reality was no match for his perceived pain.
Ramachandran came up with an unusual treatment. He placed a mirror in a cardboard box and instructed the patient to place his existing hand inside the box, next to the mirror. When the patient looked down at the mirror, the reflection of his existing hand stood in as a visual replacement of his phantom limb. The patient was told to imagine that the reflection was in fact the lost limb, and to practice clenching and unclenching his hand while looking in the mirror.
1 comments:
This stuff is WILD! During my undergrad at UCSD I took two classes from this Ramachandran Guy - He was a brilliant lecturer adn the topics were stunning! As a nurse now, we treat Phantom Pain in the hospital as real honest to goodness pain ie) Morphine (for all intensive purposes... it is pain the body perceives). In for a good read.... Rama published a book called The Phantom Limb.
Post a Comment