At the University of California, San Diego, a neuroscientist built a box with a mirror angled so a patient's intact hand appeared to replace the missing one, creating a lifelike illusion of two whole hands.
Ten patients tried the mirror. In six, moving the visible hand made the phantom feel like it moved too. Four of five patients with painful clenching spasms in the phantom fist felt them ease only when the mirror let them watch the hand appear to open.
One phantom disappeared entirely after repeated practice, telescoping into the patient's stump. The device cost almost nothing and worked on a sense that was assumed to be fixed. Mirror therapy spread into clinics for amputees and later for complex regional pain syndrome, though later trials have been small and results vary by patient.
Read the original study
Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran, Proceedings B, 1996 · doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1996.0058
A reflection did what medicine could not.
Source
- Ramachandran, V. S., & Rogers-Ramachandran, D. (1996). Synaesthesia in phantom limbs induced with mirrors. Proceedings Biological Sciences, 263(1369), 377–86. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1996.0058