Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), formerly Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or Causalgia, is a chronic progressive disease characterized by severe pain, swelling, and changes in the skin. It often affects an arm or a leg and may spread to another part of the body and is associated with dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system resulting in multiple functional loss, impairment, and disability. Though treatment is often unsatisfactory, early multimodal therapy can cause dramatic improvement or remission of the syndrome in some patients. The International Association for the Study of Pain has proposed dividing CRPS into two types based on the presence of nerve lesion following the injury.
- Type I, formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), Sudeck's atrophy, reflex neurovascular dystrophy (RND), or algoneurodystrophy, does not have demonstrable nerve lesions.
- Type II, formerly known as causalgia, has evidence of obvious nerve damage. Most information commonly available about CRPS, including this Wikipedia source, relate information more accurately about Type I CRPS. Type II CRPS tends towards the more painful and difficult to control aspects of CRPS, and the three main types of CRPS listed in this article relate mainly to Type I, also. In Type II the "cause" of the syndrome is the known or obvious injury, although the cause of the mechanisms of CRPS Type II are as unknown as the mechanisms of Type I.
The cause of this syndrome is currently unknown. Precipitating factors include injury and surgery, although there are documented cases that have no demonstrable injury to the original site.
Read more about Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: History and Nomenclature, Pathophysiology, Susceptibility, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prognosis, People Living With CRPS, Similar Disorders, Current Research, In Animals
Famous quotes containing the words complex, pain and/or syndrome:
“In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensations are the items of consciousness—a color, a weight, a texture—that we tend to think of as simple and single. Perceptions are complex affairs that embrace sensation together with other, associated or revived contents of the mind, including emotions.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)
“Women hock their jewels and their husbands’ insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“[T]he syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech’s daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)