Investigation of the effects of basic body awareness exercises on phantom pain and body image in lower extremity amputees

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of basic body awareness exercises on phantom pain and body image in lower extremity amputees.Forty people (9 women, 31 men) participated in this study who were divided into 2 groups using the randomization method. Phantom exercises were given to the first group, while Basic Body Awareness Exercieses (BBAE) were applied to the second group in addition to the phantom exercises. PArticipants' gender, age, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), average daily sleep time, Daily activity level, sports habits, the time of using prosthesis, the time of wearing prosthesis and amputation level were recorded.Body image was evaluated with Amputee Body Image Scale (AVIS), phantom pain was evaluated with Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), and sleep quality was assessed with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The mean age of all individuals participating in our study was 38.68±9.27 years, the average height was 170.45±7.37 cm, the average weight was 80.43±10.12 kg, and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 27.65±2.90 kg/m2. Age, height, weight and mean BMI of the groups were found to be similar (p>0.05).There was no difference between the groups in terms of daily activity level, mean daily sleep time, sleep quality scores, and amputee body image scale scores before and after treatment (p>0.05). We believe that phantom pain and body image perception problems, which are common in amputees, phantom exercises and BBAE applications will provide improvements.