Essay On Phantom Limb Pain

The injuries he suffered were overwhelming, and so sudden that at first, he didn't know anything was wrong. Only when he tried to put weight on his leg did he realize the extent of the damage. He jokes about it today. "I found that I didn't have a leg to stand on," he chuckles. Most of the flesh on his leg was ripped away, leaving his foot attached only by the tendons in the back of his calf. Bones were exposed and the bleeding was profuse. He also suffered head and internal injuries.

While persuasive, the aforementioned experimental conclusions are well critiqued by Ronald Melzack who argues against looking to the somatosensory cortex or thalamus as the only cause of phantom pain in his April 1992 Scientific American article. He states: Such changes in the somatosensory thalamus or cortex could explain why certain feelings arise in limbs that no longer exist or can no longer

Over the years scientists have noted many complaints of a strange form of pain called phantom limb pain. This pain is strange because it is located in an appendage that no longer exists. By many of the amputees the pain is described as totally unbearable. Phantom limb pain has even driven some victims crazy. For the amputee population this is a very real problem that definitely needs to be solved.

Kathy, a 20-year-old woman, awakens one morning to a tingling, numb sensation covering both of her feet. This has happened to her a number of times throughout the year. In the past, when experiencing this sensation, within a couple of days to a week the numbness would subside, and so she is not too concerned. About a week later, she

The phantom limb pain the woman is experiencing is described as a painful condition of the amputated limb after the stump has completely healed. It is a chronic pain that occurs in more than 80% of amputees especially those who suffered pain in the limb before the amputation. Theories suggest that phantom limb pain results from redevelopment or hyperactivity of cut peripheral nerves, scar tissue or neuroma formation in the cut peripheral nerves, spinal cord deafferentation, and alterations in the thalamus and cortex. More so, the CNS integration, which involves reorganization and plastic modifications of the somatosensory cortex, effects the receptors in perceiving the pain of the amputated limb despite of the limb itself being absent. In addition,

Gertler clarifies that pain refers to the sensation and not the common cause, which is C-fibers firing in a specific area with tissue damage. (109) She asserts that pain is not essentially connected to tissue damage of a particular location, indicating to me inadequate understanding of the concept. If one pinches one's arm, though the sensation of pain may not be necessarily located in the arm, I contend that the pain felt is relevantly connected to the location pinched. Gertler provides the alleviating effect of painkillers as an example of a non-essential feature of pain. (117) Location is unlike this property, however, and is essential in conceptualizing pain. For instance, even an amputee, who had a leg removed and experiences a phantom leg-pain, is unable to describe the sensation they feel without making reference to a specific body part. Whether or not the pain is actually “located” anywhere is irrelevant, it matters only that the pain is conceptualized as having a location. Our understanding of pain relies fundamentally on where the pain is thought to be “located.” The fact that it is impossible to conceive of pain without reference to the “location” of the sensation proves that location is an essential feature of

Prosthetic limbs have been around for centuries, but what is one thing they all have in common? They have all been a nuisance. In recent years technology of the modern day Prosthesis has ventured to new heights, but they have not perfected an artificial limb yet. With the amount of people in need of prosthetic limbs, the demand for a perfect prosthesis is tremendous. The perfect prosthesis shouldn’t feel or even look like an artificial limb. Prosthetics should go unnoticed throughout the rest of the amputee’s life.

The cause of pain can be puzzling and is not always related to specific pathology (Croft et al.,

The surgery being performed on your son consists of a few different procedures. First, what we did was to identify the muscles, blood vessels and nerves in both the arm and the stump. Then Dr. Ramos will trim the wound, and insert the supporting plate. This is what is holding your son’s arm in place, and also made reattachment possible. Before we did this, he had to trim the bone, which will make the right arm one inch shorter then the left arm. With the supporting plate in place, we will then be able to reattach everything else. The only bad news is that unfortunately Jim will never regain entire use of his right arm. Although all the vessels and muscles are connected properly the nervous system is too damaged to send messages to the brain. Because of this, recovering movement capabilities will be a slow process. Although with practice and physical therapy, Jim will slowly regain function and strength.

The earliest hypothesis regarding the cause of phantom limbs and pain was that of neuromas. These were thought to be nodules comprised of remaining nerves located at the end of the stump. These neuromas presumably continued to generate impulses that traveled up the spinal cord to portions of the thalamus and somatosensory domains of the cortex. As a result, treatment involved cutting the nerves just above the neuroma in an attempt to interrupt signaling at each somatosensory level (5). This and other related theories were deemed unsatisfactory because of the fact the phantom pain always returned, indicating that there was a more complex reason.

In the case of Derek Steen, who is suffering from Phantom Limb Syndrome, Dr. Ramachandran evaluated the levels of feelings on both sides of the patient’s body by touching certain parts of the patient with a q-tip. When the Dr. stroked the q-tip across the left side of the patients

Pain is a controversial topic, and is understood as a comprehensive, relative experience. In the healthcare field, practitioners and clinicians are sometimes skeptic of patients whom experience pain when there is no physical evidence or history of medical procedures. No one alike experiences pain the same way, even if two persons with the same type of pain could have different nociception or perception of pain. The nature of pain defined according to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) subcommittee on taxonomy (1979, p.250) “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” Meaning, there is potential or physical damage of tissue that can be seen as concrete evidence as well as, psychological pain described by some patients in a metaphoric sense of somewhat poetic measures e.g. burning, stabbing, drilling, or ripping apart. The understanding of pain is individual and subjective, but other factors influence the experience of pain.

The International Association for the Study of Pain defined pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (Unk, 2007). Pain being described such as this allows us to see that pain is a perception, not unlike seeing or hearing. Pain is the most common reason that people seek medical attention but pain is very hard to define because it is subjective. Pain perception is the process by which a painful stimulus is relayed from the site of stimulation to the central nervous system (Freudenrich, 2008). In order to determine if pain is a perception of the mind or if it is biological we must first understand how the process of pain works.

The perception of pain and the emotions that control intensity differ in individuals. Since feeling pain is somewhat adaptive, when one experiences it, he or she becomes aware of an injury and tries to remove oneself from the source that caused the injury. For this reason, pain is considered neuropathic or inflammatory in nature. Thus, when pain is the outcome from the damage caused to the neurons of the peripheral and central nervous system, then that pain is neuropathic. However, if the pain signals any kind of tissue damage, then the pain is inflammatory in nature. Due to various types of pain, the interpretation of pain by neurons and the source of that pain

However, relying on verbalization may not be adequate for all people. In cases of some patients whose verbal capabilities are restricted, other methods need to be used to evaluate pain. Measuring pain should include the location, intensity and quality of the pain. Consequences. Walker and Avant (2005) suggest that consequences are the outcomes of the concept and are useful in determining often-neglected ideas, variables, or relationships that may yield new research directions