National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Phantom-Limb Pain Eased With Virtual Reality


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Wearing high-tech headgear and a special glove that tracks the movements of his hand, an amputee completes tasks in a computer-generated environment, which is displayed on the goggles and the monitor behind him.

In the virtual world, his missing limb is shown performing the movements of his remaining arm—a technique that doctors say can ease phantom pain associated with missing limbs.

Photograph courtesy and © 2006 University of Manchester. All rights reserved.