Familiar with graded motor imagery?
 

My pt went to a class over the weekend and is very excited for me to this this approach...anyone have any experience with it? Here is a link that outlines it...thoughts? http://www.gradedmotorimagery.com

I have lots of experience with mirror therapy which was a key modality in recovery. Left/right discrimination I did not do. So great that you have an open minded and passionate PT in your corner!

The third piece on explicit motor imagery (quoted below from the site) is frickin' AWESOME and is the same mechanism that I am describing in this thread: http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread202210.html

"Explicit motor imagery is essentially thinking about moving without actually moving. Imagined movements can actually be hard work if you are in pain. This is most likely because 25 percent of the neurones in your brain are 'mirror neurones' and start firing when you think of moving or even watch someone else move (this is why you can feel exhausted after watching an action movie).

By imagining movements, you use similar brain areas as you would when you actually move. This is why sports people imagine an activity before they do it. It's exercising the brain before the rest of the body which is what you will be trying to do with the explicit motor imagery part of the GMI process.

There are many ways to go through this process but the most common way used in GMI is to imagine yourself moving rather than watching or imagining other people moving."

I'm am rather excited about trying it. We have been working with the mirror box therapy for a while but the added components make a lot of sense. I would much rather try this than let them implant me and medicate me unless absolutely necessary. I am very grateful that my therapist is interested in my case. She is a gem! I can say that today when I tried to visualize my one hand moving while moving the opposite it still made it affected hand hurt which logically doesn't make sense but what about RSD does!?