Mirror therapy
The mirror box is a 1996 by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran invented, to the imagination therapies scoring form of treatment against phantom pain after amputation , in which with the help of mirrors a healthy limb of the patient is reflected and thus the amputated limb is present again apparently for him. This phantom limb can now be specifically moved and influenced via the healthy one. For example, the phantom body part can be moved from an (imaginary) painful position into a more comfortable position and the phantom pain can thus be alleviated.
description
The patient sits in front of a mirror in such a way that the sick or amputated hand or foot is covered by him and the healthy hand or foot is visible in the mirror image. Then the healthy part of the body is exposed to stimuli. After a while, the brain interprets these stimuli as if they came from the sick or amputated part of the body. The goal of therapy is to reduce the drug phantom pain treatment .
In its original form, the mirror arrangement consists of an open-topped box with two holes through which the patient can insert his sound arm and the amputated stump of the other arm. This box is halved in the middle between the holes by a vertical partition that reflects to the left and right. If the patient looks at the box from the side, he sees his paralyzed phantom hand in the mirror and has the feeling that he can now move it (using his healthy hand) and thus, for example, move from an (imaginary) painful position to a more comfortable position.
Therapy emergence
Based on the observation that phantom limb patients complain of paralyzing and painful phantoms if the part of the body was actually paralyzed prior to its amputation (for example due to an injury to the brachial plexus ), Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran proposed the "learned paralysis hypothesis "as an explanation for phantom pain. According to their hypothesis , each time the patient tried to move the phantom limb, he experienced the sensation that it had not moved. This sensory impression was imprinted on the brain through nebulous learning , so that the brain, although the limb was no longer there, learned that the phantom body part is paralyzed.
A phantom body part is often perceived as painful because it feels in an uncomfortable or unnatural position from which the patient cannot move it. In order to retrain the brain and thus eliminate the learned paralysis, Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran invented mirror therapy using the mirror box based on their hypothesis.
Further areas of application
In addition to amputations, this method is also used for allodynia , strokes , paralysis and perception disorders . A mirror therapy for the treatment of eating disorders was developed at the Ruhr University in Bochum . The patient is asked to look specifically at himself in a mirror.
Web links
- Description by Prof. Ramachandran (PDF file; 2.42 MB)
- Press release from the Ruhr University Bochum
