Motor Imagery Practice on Amputees (MIPA)

Motor imagery practice (MIP), which is the repeated internal representation of a movement without engaging its physical execution and which shares a neurofunctional equivalence with physical practice, has been show to contribute to promote motor recovery and pain alleviation. Despite the extensive body of evidence concerning MIP therapeutic effects, the impact of mental training during lower-limb amputees' rehabilitation process remains to be investigated. This study was designed to assess MIP effects on the relearning of walking and the frequency and intensity of phantom-limb pain among acute lower-limb amputees. Data should contribute to scale up the tools made available to therapists and extend the scope of MIP application. Moreover, results may contribute to directly provide patients recovering from a lower-limb amputation with a cost-effective and adaptable technique that could considerably improve their quality of life.

Arms:

Arm label: Experimental

Arm type: Experimental

Arm description: Participants from the experimental group will perform MIP concomitantly with usual physical rehabilitation program.

Intervention type: Other

Intervention name: Motor Imagery Practice of locomotor tasks

Intervention Description: Together with physical rehabilitation performed with physiotherapists, participants from the experimental group will mentally rehearse 3 different locomotor exercises that they already physically performed beforehand.

Exercise 1: 10m Walk

Exercise 2: Timed Up and Go test (rise up from a chair, walk 3 meters, turn around, come back to the chair, turn around and sit down)

Exercise 3: Stairs climbing test (climb up 4 stairs, turn around, climb down the for stairs)

Two min of MIP will be scheduled 5 times/day, during rest periods, so that patients complete 10min of MIP per day.

Locomotor capacities and phantom-limb pain intensity will be assessed at 5 different moments of the functional rehabilitation:

Evaluation 1: first day of functional rehabilitation Evaluation 2: right after prosthesis fitting and when patients are able to walk with it during 10min Evaluation 3: three weeks after the second evaluation (to have temporally equivalent data for all patients) Evaluation 4: one week before leaving the rehabilitation center (to have functionally equivalent data for all patients) Evaluation 5: six weeks after patients left the center, for follow-up assessment

Arm label: Control

Arm type: Active comparator

Arm description: Concomitantly with usual physical rehabilitation program, participants from the control group will perform a cognitive task that has no impact on motor rehabilitation (word scramble game).

Intervention type: Other

Intervention name: Control cognitive task

Intervention Description: Together with physical rehabilitation performed with physiotherapists, participants from the control group will spend equivalent time focusing on a cognitive task without impact on motor rehabilitation.

Two min of this cognitive task will be scheduled 5 times/day, during rest periods, so that patients complete 10min of control task per day.

As for patients of the experimental group, locomotor capacities and phantom-limb pain intensity of participants from the control group will be assessed at 5 different moments of the functional rehabilitation:

Evaluation 1: first day of functional rehabilitation Evaluation 2: right after prosthesis fitting and when patients are able to walk with it during 10min Evaluation 3: three weeks after the second evaluation (to have temporally equivalent data for all patients) Evaluation 4: one week before leaving the rehabilitation center (to have functionally equivalent data for all patients) Evaluation 5: six weeks after patients left the center, for follow-up assessment

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* Suffering from acute transtibial or transfemoral lower-limb amputation
* Having signed informed consent for an clinical study
* Having a score above 24/30 at the Mini Mental Status Examination

Exclusion Criteria:

* Persons under any administrative/judicial measure
* Participants refusing to be informed of the results of the experiment
* Persons with other motor impairments
* Persons with neurologic and/or psychiatric disorders