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Phantom limb pain is a debilitating condition that occurs in a subset of patients after limb amputation. Growing evidence suggests that such pain may be the result of maladaptive cortical plasticity. Mirror therapy, in which patients observe limb movements of the intact arm using a mirror, can significantly reduce pain. However, mirror therapy is not universally effective and cannot be used in all patients.
In this nonrandomized clinical study, researchers examined the effects of phantom motor execution (PME) using an augmented-reality system in 14 patients with chronic, intractable phantom limb pain; subjects had experienced pain for a mean duration of 10 years before study enrollment. Participants received 12 sessions of PME using an augme…