Kathy, a 20-year-old woman, awakens one morning to a tingling, numb sensation covering both of her feet. This has happened to her a number of times throughout the year. In the past, when experiencing this sensation, within a couple of days to a week the numbness would subside, and so she is not too concerned. About a week later, she…
Due to having third-degree burns on 15% off her body and since third degree burns are painless her body was probably numb and in shock as well. Since the second degree burns aren’t as deep she may feel pain in these areas because the nerves are still intact.…
In conclusion, Phantom Limb pain is a rather common and disabling condition. We have learnt and…
Hargrove, Simon, and Young, discuss how a prosthetic limb can be controlled a persons’ thoughts. In order for the prosthetic to work the patients undergo targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), Muscle reinnervation redirects nerves from damaged muscle from the amputated limb to the healthy hamstring muscle above the knee. (Hargrove, Simon, and Young, 2013) After the computer program discovers and investigates data from the sensors then sends the signal to the robotic leg to perform the action the patient is trying to do. The computer programmers found that it is safer to use muscle signals than it is to use robotic signals.…
Phantom limb pain first arose during the sixteenth century by a French military surgeon, Ambrose Pare (Weinstein, 1998). He described this as pain being perceived from a part of the body which no longer exists, therefore belonging to neuropathic pain syndromes. The phantom limb is generally described to have a tingling sensation and a definite shape that resembles the limb pre amputation. Moreover, some claim to feel it move through space in the same way that the normal limb would have, for example, walking, sitting and stretched out (Melzack, 1973). Almost all amputees would report these non painful sensations immediately after surgery (Nikolajsen et al, 2005). Initially, the phantom limb feels normal causing the amputee to use the limb for its would be usual purposes…
Ramachandran, V. S. and Rogers-Ramachandran, D., (2000, March). Phantom Limbs and Neural Plasticity. Neurological Review, 57(), 317-320. Retrieved from http://www.neurosciences.us/courses/systems/CentralPlas/Ramachandran_2000.pdf…
The National Post said, “It’s a problem for individuals because it’s distressing. But lots of things are.” He suggests this is just another form of body diversity — like transgenderism — and amputation may help someone achieve similar goals as someone who, say, undergoes cosmetic surgery to look more like who they believe their ideal selves to be.…
Phantom pain is the pain an individual can feel that seems to come from the body part that has been amputated. In this type of situation, the conflict between the visual feedback that the limb is absent and the proprioceptive representation that it is present leads to confusion in the neuromatrix which generates pain…
The effects of the paralysis on the skeleton are almost simultaneous after the trauma. The nerves that connect to all the connected areas die the dysfunction of the organs to include the bladder, intestines, and also the sexual areas. As there is decreased function of the musculature, the blood supplies to all areas are decreased…
(2004). Journal of Neurology. Retrieved November 3, 2006, from Phantom Limb Pain Web site: http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/jmason_main?http_rc=400&class=session&sev=temp&type=session&cause=http%2G%1B%1Aweb1.infotrac.galegroup.com%1Hygt%6Finfomark%5V672%1R5997%1C5567kY87%2Fpurl%3Drc1_EAIM_0_A77822655%98dyn%3r4!ar_fmt%2Fsw_aep%2Fjmason_main&cont=&msg…
Anosognia arises in conjunction with other injuries — generally strokes and blindness. People who have lost the ability to control one half of their body will say that they just don't want to move that part of their body. They'll say that that half of the body is really working normally, after all. When…
Jane 47 year-old is a triple amputee, have undergone operations to remove both her legs and one arm due to Type 1 diabetes. She faces the prospect of losing her remaining arm in the near future because of diabetes. Imagine not having your legs, what a depressing life that would be.…
Wyss, J., et al. 2002. The limbic system. In Conn, P. M. (ed). Neuroscience in Medicine, 369-387. Philadelphia: J.B.…
V.S. Ramachandran, in his TED talk entitled “Three Clues to Understanding Your Brain,” states that we can better understand and learn about the functions of our brain by studying patients who have suffered damage to a small region on their brain. The first example he uses to support his idea is the Capgras delusion. People who suffer from this syndrome don’t have any emotions when they see something of importance to them. For example, when a normal person sees their mother, they would get some sort of emotional response but a person with Capgras delusion won’t get any response and even negate the fact that it is their mother. The cause of this is due to the fact that the connection between the visual areas and emotional centers is cut. His second example is his experiments with patients who have a syndrome called phantom limb and experience paralysis and pain in their phantom limb. What he found out was the paralysis in his patients’ phantom limbs were actually learned because before the patients had their limbs amputated, their limbs were paralyzed and the brain was sending messages to move but it would get visually messages that the limb wasn’t moving; thus the learned paralysis would get carried over to the phantom limb. What he did to cure his patients’ from phantom limb and the paralysis was put a mirror reflecting their adjacent limb and told them to move it around. What this does is create a conflict between the vision sensory and the muscles signals, so the brain just ignores them both making the phantom limb and pain disappear. Then Ramachandran goes on to talk about synesthesia. Synesthesia is when a person hears a sound and associates a color to it or when a person sees a number and associates a color to it. He said this happens because the areas for color and the areas for sound are next to each other and they are wired together. He also stated all of us are born with everything in the brain…
To scientists, the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of mirrors make them powerful tools for exploring questions about perception and cognition in humans and other neuronally gifted species, and how the brain interprets and acts upon the great tides of sensory information from the external world. They are using mirrors to study how the brain decides what is self and what is other, how it judges distances and trajectories of objects, and how it reconstructs the richly three-dimensional quality of the outside world from what is essentially a two-dimensional snapshot taken by the retina’s flat sheet of receptor cells. They are applying mirrors in medicine, to create reflected images of patients’ limbs or other body parts and thus trick the brain into healing itself. Mirror therapy has been successful in treating disorders like phantom limb syndrome, chronic pain and post-stroke paralysis.…