PGI TREATS ACHING AMPUTATED LIMB WITH BIOFEEDBACK THERAPY

A patient who came with trauma in PGIMER Chandigarh got sepsis and unfortunately, doctors had to get his leg amputated. But the amputated leg was still aching. Sound Strange! But it’s a real pain that the brain feels called phantom pain.  As per PGI Psychiatrist Dr Aseem Mehra, “The lost limb that is aching is a sign of phantom pain”. The Amputee Clinic is where Dr Mehra is treating the pain of that limb which no more exists in the patient’s body. This is a condition when the patient went through a trauma and lost his/her limb due to disease or accident. They still tend to feel the pain of lost limbs. It’s a clinical condition and a psychiatrist treats it with Biofeedback therapy. So that they may accept the trauma and learn to handle the new limb connected to their body with acceptance.

Amputee Clinic that recently got launched in PGIMER Chandigarh a few months back, has this facility under one roof. What is Biofeedback therapy? “Biofeedback therapy is a technique that trains people to improve their health by controlling certain bodily processes that normally happen unintentionally such as heart rate, BP, muscle tension, and skin temperature”, explains Psychiatrist Dr Mehra.

“In this technique, the patient tends to hear some music that keeps changing with the changes in his body and skin temperature. It is all clinical practice where we get to know when the patient is lying that he got relaxed after the therapy as signals do not lie,” adds Dr Mehra.