The Effect of Phantom Limb Pain on the Movement and Sensorimotor Control

This paper aims at investigating the leading mechanisms responsible for the phantom limb syndrome in amputees. Besides thesocial stigmatization that the majority of amputees experience in daily life, there is also the less known problem of the so-calledphantom pain which affects between 76% and 87% of patients post-amputation. The latter is a consequence of a disrupted internalbody representation and is often overlooked when designing prosthetic devices for amputees. We will investigate qualitatively and quantitatively the manner in which the movement andsensorimotor control are affected by the phantom pain during training to restore the muscle tone in remaining body sections. The outcomes should be relevant for both scientific and clinical perspectives ofphantom limb pain treatment as well as smart prosthetic development. As the mechanism behind phantom limb syndrome is not yet fully understood, this project will make a great contribution in that direction, especially in the area of rehabilitation devicedevelopment.