Physiotherapy techniques used in the sensation of the phantom limb in patients with amputation of the superior member, systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: the sensation of a phantom limb is experienced by people who have had an amputation or loss of one of their limbs and continue to perceive its presence; in most cases it occurs within days or in the first month.Objective: determine which are the most used physiotherapy techniques in the treatment of phantom limb sensation and which of them is the most effective.Method: a search was carried out in main databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane and ScienceDirect, under the guidelines of the PRISMA model, for the last 5 years, where 9 studies were selected.Results: there are several techniques that are applied in phantom limb pain such as: mirror therapy, graded motor images, neurofeedback training, repetitive magnetic cranial stimulation, BCI training and virtual reality. These showed a prolonged reduction in pain, improving quality of life and therefore activities of daily living. The most outstanding result indicates that virtual reality and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces DMF and its characteristics despite the fact that the most used is mirror therapy because it is economical and easy to apply.Conclusions: the physiotherapeutic techniques used in the sensation of the phantom limb are diverse that help to improve the symptoms in the short-term depending on the treatment to be applied, avoiding surgical and pharmacological interventions