Attention in CRPS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Ignoring space around a painful limb: The role of attention in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
IRAS ID
248122
Contact name
Janet Bultitude
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bath
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a disorder of severe chronic pain in one or more limb(s). People with CRPS have pain and other symptoms are disproportionate to any injury that might have preceded the development of the disorder. In addition to these, people with CRPS often report unusual perceptions of the painful limb that suggest that their mental knowledge about their body is impaired.
People with CRPS can also report difficulty attending to their affected limb, even though their pain causes constant discomfort and is difficult to ignore. There is evidence that treatments that aim to increase attention to the affected limb can reduce pain, which suggests that the attention change might contribute to the physical symptoms of CRPS. Therefore, it could be important to understand under which specific circumstances this attention change is present.
We will test the possibility that people with CRPS show this inattention only when the (impaired) mental knowledge about their body is activated. We will invite 40 people with CRPS to the University of Bath to take part in a single research session taking a maximum of four hours. The study will involve questionnaires about pain and mental body knowledge, an assessment of CRPS symptoms, and sensitive computerised attention tests.
In addition, we will recruit 40 people with other chronic pain conditions and 40 pain-free controls. This will allow us to determine differences between people with CRPS and pain-free controls, and to determine if these are specific to CRPS or not. We hope that the gained knowledge regarding the origin of attention change in CRPS could be used to improve rehabilitation. This study is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1430
Date of REC Opinion
25 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion