Published treatments of phantom limb pain

Abstract

A review of all available published literature showed that 43 individual treatments for phantom limb pain have been in recent use. These range from such drastic measures as lobotomies, through spinal surgery and reamputation to more innocuous treatments such as injection of the stump with anesthetics and relaxation training. Virtually all of the methods reported as successful by several workers have been specifically listed by others as unsuccessful. Only a few of the newer treatments, such as relaxation training, have not been reviewed as unseccessful. This may be as much a factor of their recent advent as their lasting success. The success rate of most treatments is below the rate and duration of success produced by placebo treatments of surgical pain.