Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is characterised by constant regional neuropathic pain that is usually associated with abnormal sensory, autonomic, motor and/or trophic changes. Though it usually develops after trauma to a limb, in CRPS pain is disproportionate in time or intensity to the usual course of pain after injury. There are two subtypes of CRPS: in type I no overt nerve lesion ca...

Since the early musings in the mid-1800s of Claude Bernard and his French neurological colleagues on the association of pain with the sympathetic nervous system, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) has both fascinated and perplexed practitioners. Some of the clearest and most interesting descriptions of `causalgia' come from the American Civil War by one of Bernard's students, Silas Weir-Mitc...

Objectives At the completion of this course, the reader should be able to: 1. Discuss the symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome. 2. Delineate the diagnostic criteria for complex regional pain syndrome. 3. Review the major pathophysiologic mechanisms of complex regional pain syndrome. 4. Describe the role of sympathetic dysfunction in complex regional pain syndrome. 5. Discuss interventiona...

Complex regional pain syndrome has long been recognized as a severe and high impact chronic pain disorder. However, the condition has historically been difficult to define and classify and little attention has been given to where complex regional pain syndrome sits within other apparently similar chronic pain disorders, such as fibromyalgia and regional pain syndrome. In this review challenges ...

Complex regional pain syndrome consists of pain and other symptoms that are unexpectedly severe or protracted after an injury. In type II complex regional pain syndrome, major nerve injury, often with motor involvement, is the cause; in complex regional pain syndrome I, the culprit is a more occult lesion, often a lesser injury that predominantly affects unmyelinated axons. In florid form, dist...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the use of the term 'complex regional pain syndrome' in the medical literature and evaluate whether or not the traditional names 'reflex sympathetic dystrophy' and 'causalgia' have already been replaced with the new terms 'complex regional pain syndrome type I' and 'complex regional pain syndrome type II', respectively. MATERIALS AND METHODS The Scopus and PubMed database...