In the next phase of the weekly two-hour treatment, Ortiz-Catalan uses the same electrodes to have the patient steer a car in video game TrackMania with his missing hand.īoth treatments seem to have a massive impact on the patient, who had spent decades dealing with a constant burning pain in his missing arm. The patient then uses the muscle movements he would usually use to move his missing limb, and the augmented video shows the reattached arm moving in real time.
Phantom pain management alogothim software#
That data is then fed into open-source computer software Ortiz-Catalan created, which deciphers those movements and uses them to create a computer-generated image of the missing arm. He designed a system that combines advanced myoelectric pattern recognition with augmented reality and video games.Įssentially, Ortiz-Catalan attaches probes to the point where an amputee's arm was removed to detect muscle movements. Max Ortiz-Catalan is a PhD candidate at Chalmers University of Technology and the Centre of Orthopaedic Osseointegration at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden with a master's in science. No one is quite sure why a person who has lost a limb might feel like they can move it or be tormented by stabbing muscle cramps and searing pain in that nonexistent appendage.īut a researcher in Sweden is getting closer to finding a cure for phantom pain thanks to an experimental muscle mapping treatment that uses augmented reality to trick the brain into thinking a missing arm is back, and video games that have a player steer a car with a missing hand.
For the most part, phantom limbs and the pain they can feel remain a medical mystery.