This 2003 narrative review by Jänig and Baron synthesizes human and animal research to answer a fundamental question: what actually causes CRPS? Rather than attributing the syndrome to a single mechanism, it examines the full triad of somatosensory, autonomic, and somatomotor abnormalities to build a unified pathophysiologic framework.
When you encounter a post-traumatic limb pain syndrome with autonomic changes, don't anchor on sympathetically maintained pain as the core diagnosis — the majority of CRPS I patients lack it, and the syndrome involves parallel somatosensory, motor, and vascular dysfunction requiring a multimodal approach.
Recognizing the three vascular stages (warm acute vs. cold chronic) and the high prevalence of motor findings helps you avoid both under-treatment of central components and over-reliance on sympathetic blocks as monotherapy.
This 2003 narrative review by Jänig and Baron synthesizes human and animal research to answer a fundamental question: what actually causes CRPS? Rather than attributing the syndrome to a single mechanism, it examines the full triad of somatosensory, autonomic, and somatomotor abnormalities to build a unified pathophysiologic framework.
When you encounter a post-traumatic limb pain syndrome with autonomic changes, don't anchor on sympathetically maintained pain as the core diagnosis — the majority of CRPS I patients lack it, and the syndrome involves parallel somatosensory, motor, and vascular dysfunction requiring a multimodal approach.
Recognizing the three vascular stages (warm acute vs. cold chronic) and the high prevalence of motor findings helps you avoid both under-treatment of central components and over-reliance on sympathetic blocks as monotherapy.