Phantom limbs - or phantoms of phantom limbs?

摘要

In the recent article about phantom limbs (PL) (Antoniello et al., 2010) frequency and characteristics of PL in stroke patients are investigated applying a questionnaire based approach.In their cohort of 50 patients 54% report phantom sensations. The authors make a good effort to subdivide the phantom sensations in replacement versus reduplicative (supernumerary) phantom sensations: 22 of the patients report a postural phantom, 14 a kinesthetic, 10 a combined postural/kinesthetic and only one patient a reduplicative PL. The authors deduce that phantom sensations are more frequent than previously thought and have been under-reported, even if the observed prevalence cannot be generalized to all post-stroke patients due to some study limitations.