Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Approximately 80% of amputees experience phantom limb pain. These individuals show reduced quality of life, maladaptive coping strategies, and amplified levels of depression and anxiety in the years following surgery. Despite ongoing efforts, there is still no widely accepted treatment for phantom limb pain. Virtual reality and haptic technology offer a customizable, engaging, and low-cost intervention that has yet to be assessed for phantom limb pain. This study aims to develop an application that uses virtual reality and haptic touch to reduce phantom limb pain. This will be done by developing an intervention that is customizable to the individual's phantom limb characteristics (via virtual reality) and involves touch (via haptic technology) to evoke a feeling of ownership of the virtually generated limb, critical for the effectiveness of the treatment. The application will go through several phases of development and testing, during which virtual reality experts, phantom limb pain researchers, and amputees will be involved to evaluate and inform the intervention. If successful, this application has the potential to substantially decrease the incidence of phantom limb pain and improve the lives of thousands of Canadians suffering from debilitating pain.