I have been interested in working with amputee patients for some time. I was interested in finding out whether mirror therapy actually worked for those patients who suffer from phantom limb pain. The treatment appears to be very simple and, from the few videos I had seen prior to my research, it was very effective. According to several websites, the likelihood of amputation patients having phantom limb pain is between 50% and 80% of all amputees. This is a huge number and if mirror therapy were actually effective it could help reduce this debilitating pain in hundreds if not thousands of patients. The first paper I reviewed was published in 2006. It was a randomized control trial. Eighty patients were included in the study, forty-one in the experimental group and thirty-nine in the control group. Patients reporting phantom limb pain who were patients at one of six local facilities were invited to participate in this study. There were no inclusion or exclusion data for this study. The distribution of participants was fairly even, except for the reason for amputation. The study also included studies of phantom limb movement and phantom limb sensation. I focused on phantom limb pain (PLP) and its outcomes. According to the results, patients who had reported PLP before this study said their pain was reduced. This study seemed to be more interested in phantom limb awareness and phantom limb movement. There was no baseline comparison and no one was blinded to the study or the results. Patients were also informed that the treatment should not induce or cause any additional pain or cause any side effects. With this information provided to patients, they could also have the... half of the paper... a surprisingly simple therapy. Works Cited Ramachandran VS, Rogers-Ramachandran D. Synesteia in mirror-induced phantom limbs. Proc Biol Sci. 1996; 263:377-386Brodie EE, Whyte A, Niven CA. Analgeisa through the mirror? A randomized clinical case investigating the effect of visualization of a "virtual" limb on pain, sensation and movement of the phantom limb. Eur J Pain. 2007;11:428-436Chan BL, Witt R, Charrow AP, Magee A, Howard R, Pasquina PF, et al. Mirror therapy for phantom limb pain. N Engl J Med 2007;357:2206-2007 MacLachlan M. McDonald D, Waloch J. Mirror treatment of phantom lower extremity pain: a case study. Disability Rehabilitation. 2004; 26:901-904 Darnal BD, Lin H. Home-based self-administered mirror therapy for phantom pain: a pilot study. J Rehabil Med. 2012; 44:254-260Kim SY, Kim YY. Mirror therapy for phantom limb pain. Korean J Pain. 2012; 25:272-274