From Innovation to Global Impact: Rethinking the Fight Against Phantom Limb Pain
Max Ortiz Catalán, PhD
September 1, 2026
After years of developing sophisticated prosthetic technology to help people regain function after limb loss, the most important lesson I learned came not from the laboratory, but from a person with limb loss. TJ was a volunteer who had come to help me test algorithms for the control of an advanced bionic arm, not to seek a new prosthesis for himself. Well into retirement, he was not after a more sophisticated prosthesis. What he kept coming back to, almost in passing, was the invisible pain he constantly experienced every day. For nearly five decades, TJ had lived with phantom limb pain (PLP), a persistent and debilitating sensation of pain in his hand that was no longer there.
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