• Stefan Seidel, Gregor Kasprian, Thomas Sycha, and Eduard Auff.
• Universitätsklinik für Neurologie, Medizinische Universität Wien, Wien, Austria. stefan.seidel@meduniwien.ac.at
• Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. 2009 Jan 1; 121 (13-14): 440-4.

Background And ObjectivesThe aim of this review was to evaluate the evidence for the treatment of phantom limb pain with mirror therapy.Material And MethodsRandomised controlled studies were identified by a systematic search strategy in the databases "Medline" and "The Cochrane Library". The studies were evaluated using the quality criteria of the JADAD-scale.ResultsThree small-sized randomised controlled studies were identified. Unfortunately, these studies lacked methodological quality. One of them found a significant decrease of phantom pain after four weeks of daily mirror therapy sessions. Two other studies could not find a significant difference in the reduction of phantom limb pain between intervention- and control-groups. To date, there is only circumstantial evidence for mirror therapy in phantom pain. Hence, no firm recommendations regarding this treatment option are possible.ConclusionMore sufficiently powered randomised controlled studies with high methodological quality are mandatory to investigate the analgesic effect of mirror therapy in phantom limb pain.

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