Active clinical trials for "Phantom Limb"

The amputation of a limb results in chronic pain associated with the lost limb in the majority of patients, which persists over time. Despite a large number of studies conducted in an attempt to elucidate the neural basis of phantom pain, these are still not elucidated and current treatments often fail to relieve patients' pain.

Amputation is a problem that can be encountered for many reasons, can cause functional disability in varying severities and puts a multifaceted financial burden on individuals, society, and states. The phantom feeling is the state of the sensory sensation of a limb that does not already exist and is observed in various forms in individuals with amputation. The aim of this project is to investigate whether the phantom sensation affects autocorrelation of gait in unilateral amputated individuals and thus to determine whether the phantom sensation is a functional sensation that affects the multifaceted nature of gait. In addition, the measurement of whether phantom sensation contributes to the ability of amputees to adapt to changing conditions and obtaining a unique calculation method that determines autocorrelation are other specific aspects of the study. The study will be conducted on individuals with unilateral traumatic transtibial amputation who have acceptable phantom sensation, individuals with no-phantom sensation and healthy individuals. Individuals who meet the inclusion criteria will be included in the gait assessment. During the evaluation, at least 512 consecutive steps will be collected from each individual when walking on the treadmill at their preferred speed. The walk test will then be repeated on the perturbation treadmill of 5-10%. It will be determined whether the gait characteristics obtained by gait analysis show autocorrelation by using signal processing methods.

The purpose of this research study is to determine if putting local anesthetic through one or two percutaneous catheters placed next to the nerves that go to an amputated limb will decrease long-term pain in the amputated limb.

The purpose of this study is to determine if treatment with percutaneous cryoablation yields significant differences in the evaluative criteria of Phantom Limb Syndrome (PLS).

Neuropathic pain is often a result of direct diseases of peripheral or central nervous system with an estimated prevalence of 8% of adults and this pain is associated with significant consequences because of longer symptom duration and severity than many of the other pain syndromes. Functional brain imaging has revealed that many regions of the brain are engaged by painful events, but specific areas such as the thalamus have been markedly implicated. The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility and safety of MRI-guided focused ultrasound treatment using the ExAblate Transcranial System in patients suffering from Neuropathic pain. This treatment modality offers non-invasive precise treatment potential for these patients.

The primary purpose of this study is to determine if the group using Farabloc shows a greater reduction in pain levels than the group not using Farabloc at 6-week, 12-week and 1-month post treatment follow-ups.

Background: Phantom limb pain (PLP) develops in 50-80% of subjects who have a limb amputated. It is not well known what causes PLP to develop and the current treatments have been shown to be largely ineffective. Resent research, however, have indicated that cortical reorganizing occurring after amputation of the cortex areas related to the missing limb may be related to the development of PLP. Furthermore, the research indicated that by providing meaningful sensory input coming from the phantom limb the PLP may be alleviated and the cortical organization normalized. Aim: The CIP described in the current application, is part of a the EU-project "EPIONE", which aims to investigate if and how cortical normalization and PLP alleviation can be induced by providing phantom limb sensations (sensations which seems to originate from the missing limb) in hand amputated subjects. Method: In the current study, which will take place at Aalborg University Hospital (AUH), 2-4 hand amputated subjects experiencing severe PLP will implanted with interneural nerve electrodes in the arm stump for up to one year. Therapy will be evaluated in two stages, first during a standardized four week phase where the subject receives daily therapy. If the therapy is shown to be effective, therapy may be reinitiated during a second longer therapy phase. During the therapy sessions, selective nerve stimulation will be performed. The amputee will experience this as sensations (movement, touch, temperature, vibration etc.) originating from the phantom limb. While implanted, we will investigate how well we can induce these sensations and we will provide a stimulation therapy, which consist of stimulation activities which requires the subject to focus on the evoked sensations. Prior to, during a and following therapy a series of assessments (standardized across all EPIONE partners to enable comparison) will be conducted to relate therapy with PLP, cortical organization, the mental state etc. of the subject. Expected outcome: The stimulation therapy is expected to alleviate PLP and induce cortical normalization. The experience we gain might be used for deriving clinical guidelines on how to treat PLP.

Mirror therapy will consist of observing the unaffected limb reflected in a mirror positioned in the midline to block the view of the affected limb. All therapy sessions will be supervised by a physical therapist with the exception of weekends when the patients will continue therapy on an independent basis. In an effort to objectively demonstrate cortical reorganization associated with mirror therapy, patients can elect to participate in a functional MRI (fMRI) portion of the study. The fMRI would be evaluated prior to initiating the experimental or control therapy (Due to the sensitive timeline in this population and its effect on recruitment, we have amended the protocol to allow recruitment and enrollment to take place even if the timeline does not allow for the fMRI to be executed 2 weeks prior to amputation. Though this would be ideal, we will accept subjects that are only available for day before amputation scans), just before the operative procedure, at four weeks post-operation and then again at one year. All subjects will be evaluated at 4 weeks, 8 weeks (functional physical therapy (PT) tests only) 12 weeks, and 12 months postoperatively to determine 1) the incidence, severity and functional impact of phantom limb pain 2)the ability to meet various specialists' endpoints, to include participation in physical therapy, and 3) overall quality of life which the patients can describe subjectively. This therapy could have a dramatic impact on the long term prognosis of amputees whether due to trauma, metabolic conditions, tumor, or peripheral vascular disease. This protocol will include performing fMRIs on a cohort of healthy, active duty, age matched, male personnel to create reference data to compare the fMRI data of study participants.

The researchers propose to conduct a pilot study on the efficacy of mirror-box and mental visualization treatments on phantom limb pain. The trial will last for 4 months and during the first month, data will be gathered daily on the number of episodes of phantom limb pain, the average length of episodes, average intensity of pain, and worst intensity of pain. In addition, the rapidity of pain relief, the length of therapy needed to sustain long-lasting pain relief, and whether use of these two treatment methods during rehabilitation can provide sustained and/or permanent pain relief will be determined. Cognitive testing will also be performed to determine the effect of limb amputation on cognition and mood with results being compared to an on-going study of similar effects in patients with chronic (> 3 months) limb amputation. The inclusion of subjects with phantom limb pain in upper extremity amputations has recently been approved.

In this study we will examine assess if treatment with transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) improve the analgesic effects of mirror therapy for patients with phantom pain of lower extremity. The study will include 3 arms: only mirror therapy, mirror therapy + sham tDCS, and mirror therapy + active tDCS.