phantom limb
Sign in to saveAlso known as ghost limb
perception of painful and nonpainful phantom sensations that occur following the complete or partial loss of a limb
Key facts
- Specialty
- Neurology
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
3,407 papers- Phantom-limb pain: characteristics, causes, and treatment.The Lancet. Neurology · 2002
- Phantom limb pain: A literature review.Chinese journal of traumatology = Zhonghua chuang shang za zhi · 2018
- Phantom Limb Pain Management.The Journal of hand surgery · 2025
- Phantom limb syndrome: from pathogenesis to treatment. A narrative review.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2024
- Brain (re)organisation following amputation: Implications for phantom limb pain.NeuroImage · 2020
via PubMed
~18 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Phantom limb refers to brain's perception of pain in a limb that has been surgically amputated and is one of the most common sequelae of limb loss, with prevalence estimates ranging from 50% to 80% of all individuals who undergo amputation. Phantom limb can also present itself in two ways: phantom limb pain (PLP) or phantom limb sensations. Phantom limb pain is a painful or unpleasant sensation experienced where the amputated limb was. Phantom sensations are any other, nonpainful sensations perceived in the amputated or missing limb area.
Signs and symptoms
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “phantom limb” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.