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Emotional Effects of Lower-Limb Amputation in the Aged

List of authors.
  • Lloyd M. Caplan, M.D.†,
  • and Thomas P. Hackett, M.D.‡

THE emotional responses of people to the loss of an extremity have been dealt with by a number of investigators. In most of these studies the subjects have been young, and attention has been chiefly focused on the curious phenomenon of the phantom limb.1 In the last few years we have examined a number of elderly patients with amputations. From this group 12 were selected for intensive study. Ten of these 12 patients complained of phantom sensations, but far more troubling was another postoperative manifestation that has not been thoroughly discussed in the literature: in each case a serious reactive . . .

Funding and Disclosures

* From the Hall–Mercer Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital Division, and the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

Author Affiliations

BOSTON

† Research fellow in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; clinical and research fello n psychiaty, Massachustts Geeral Hos‡ital.

‡ Instructor in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; assistant psychiatris–, Hall-Mercer Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital Division.

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