A human experimental immobilization model and complex regional pain syndrome

摘要

The mechanisms responsible for inducing and maintaining Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) are still unclear, and the lack of human CRPS models has been an obstacle in further studying the underlying mechanisms. We have investigated the effects of forearm immobilization on regional sensory and autonomic functions in healthy subjects [19,20]. Human forearm immobilization induces a CRPS-like syndrome of brief duration, suggesting that immobilization may play a role at least in elements of CRPS. However, the immobilization-induced regional changes do not explain all symptoms in CRPS, which is also underlined by new results pointing towards a global autonomic disturbance in CRPS (Terkelsen et al., submitted).