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Query: UMLS:C0423716 (Neuropathic pain)
 1,417 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Neuropathic pain after spinal cord injury is not well understood and is difficult to treat. One possible cause is mismatch between motor commands and sensory feedback. This two-part study in five paraplegic patients investigated whether a visual illusion aimed to correct this mismatch reduces pain. In study 1, patients undertook three conditions: (i) virtual walking: with a mirror placed in front of a screen, patients aligned their own upper body with a film of a lower body walking. Patients imagined walking and 'watched themselves' walk; (ii) guided imagery; (iii) watching a film. One patient withdrew from virtual walking because of distress. For all patients, the mean (95% CI) decrease in pain (100 mm VAS) was 42 mm (approximately 65%) (11-73 mm) for virtual walking, 18 mm (4-31 mm) for guided imagery and 4mm (-3 to 11 mm) for watching the film. Mean (95% CI) time to return to pre-task pain was 34.9 min (20.1-49.8 min) for virtual walking; 13.9 min (-0.9 to 28.8 min) for the guided imagery and 16.3 min (1.5-31.2 min) for the film. To investigate its clinical utility, four patients underwent virtual walking every weekday for 3 weeks. Mean (95% CI) decrease in pain was 53 mm (45-61 mm) at post training and 43 mm (27-58 mm) at 3-month follow-up. Virtual walking may be a viable treatment for pain after spinal cord injury. A clinical trial seems warranted.
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PMID:Using visual illusion to reduce at-level neuropathic pain in paraplegia. 1733 74

Pain caused by a lesion or a disease affecting the somatosensory nervous system is known as Neuropathic pain. It has been shown that neuropathic pain can be treated with the combination of simultaneous transcranial direct current stimulation and the generation of the visual illusion that the patient retains control of the affected limbs. For persons with neuropathic pain in the lower limbs, the visual illusion consists of an image of the patient walking normally. Such a visual illusion has classically been generated by using a physical mirror and a projector. The objective of this paper is to develop and validate a computer-based version of the visual illusion, including Gestural Control. The developed system has been validated in a trial and has been successfully implanted in daily clinical practice in a reference neurorehabilitation hospital. A retrospective statistical analysis shows that the patients treated with the computer-based system reduce their pain level significantly more than the patients treated with the mirror and projector treatment before the introduction of the computer-based version. Furthermore, it also makes possible to bring the therapy to the home of the patients, where the treatment can be self-administered while still being monitored by the clinical staff.
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PMID:Gestural Interaction and Visual Illusion for Lower Limbs' Neuropathic Pain Treatment. 3029 25