Phantom Limb Pain
This document aims to inform you, who is enduring Phantom Limb Pain (PLP), about the most important considerations to achieve pain relief with motor training therapies such as Phantom Motor Execution (PME) and Progressive Motor Training (PMT).
How does PLP come about?
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Our brain has a “map of our body”, and this is how we can still perceive our limbs after an amputation. In fact, most people still feel their missing limb after an amputation. This is because even though the limb is gone, the map is still in the brain.
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A large portion of the map of our body is dedicated to our limbs. This means that many neurons are dedicated to control our arms and legs, and the original “job” of these neurons is lost when the limb is lost.
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The activity of the many neurons responsible for controlling the limb is reduced drastically after an amputation, which allows for interference by other neurons such as those responsible for processing pain. This is how PLP can come about.
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In other words, the neurons of your missing limb “lost their job” due to the amputation, and that allows them to be free to mingle with pain processing neurons. If you give them their job back, they will be too busy to help pain to come about.