Standard treatment generally doesn’t provide relief for people with amputations who experience phantom limb pain. However, research on the use of virtual reality has recently shown promise for this new approach.

Laurel J. Buxbaum, PsyD, associate director of MRRI, and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, in Stuttgart, Germany, recently published research about the use of immersive low-cost virtual reality treatment for the treatment of phantom limb pain.

The article, published in the February 19, 2018 issue of Frontiers in Neurology,  provides additional evidence that virtual reality activities can reduce phantom pain in lower-limb amputees.

Dr. Buxbaum is director of MRRI’s Cognition and Action Laboratory and a research professor of rehabilitation medicine at Thomas Jefferson University.

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