Join Katleho Limakasto in discussing One Thing he wants people challenged by pain to know. Can your hand (or any other part) that is no longer there still hurt? Explore the current state of pain science research and clinical practice in this straight-to-the-point interview with Katleho.
About Dr Katleho Limakasto
Dr. Katleho Limakatso (PhD) is a physiotherapist and Post Doctoral Researcher in the field of pain. He has a special interest in the study and management of chronic post-surgical pain, particularly phantom limb pain in people with amputations. Find out more about Katleho here.
Transcript
Hayley: What is one thing you want people challenged by pain to know?
Max: Um, I’m going to answer this question in the, the context of phantom limb pain, since that’s what I primarily deal with on a day-to-day basis. So one thing that like people challenged by phantom limb pain to know is that phantom limb pain is common. It is associated with various biopsychosocial factors, and it is best managed using an interdisciplinary approach.
To date, there is some suggestion that phantom limb pain may be driven across different parts of the central nervous system, but there isn’t a study that really pinpoints the exact mechanisms that drive phantom limb pain. So I think that would be a starting point for us to understand. And on the basis of understanding, then we can design a treatment that specifically targets such specific mechanisms. And then we hope by doing so we could eradicate phantom limb pain once and for all. That’s an ambitious plan. Hopefully we’ll get to that in the near future.
We need to treat pain early. So of course this might be difficult for patients who come in for emergency amputation cause they are unexpected in the first place. But we could potentially do something for patients who have elective surgeries. They are scheduled for surgery and before then, there are many things that we could do leading up to an amputation surgery.
Also, one thing that we’ve used quite a lot in South Africa is community based workers. So there’s other people who provide care beyond the primary health system. So they go into their communities and deal with patients in the comfort of their own homes. And I think this is mostly relevant. In a case of people who are with amputations, most of which are really old, and they have challenges with ambulation, and they’re usually confined to their home.
So if you have a healthcare worker go in there maybe to mobilize them and to help them with some of their needs. We could factor in a component of education there to make sure that a patient is up to speed with regards to their own self-management. We could do this before amputation because we would know by then that they are scheduled for an amputation and this education would then continue even after amputation.
I believe having a program of that nature could potentially make a, or bring about a significant change in improvement with regards to patient outcomes in this group.
Hayley: Thank you so much for chatting to us and looking forward to the next, um, parts of your research.
Max: All right. It’s a pleasure and thank you so much for having me.