A psychiatric study of amputees.

Psychiatric manifestations were studied in 72 amputees in the post-operative period. All were right handed. Besides phantom limb phenomena, which were observed in nearly four-fifths of the cases and are described in another paper, nearly two-thirds had psychiatric symptoms inthe form of depression (45 patients), anxiety (38), crying spells (38), insomnia (34), loss of appetite (23), suicidal ideas (21) and psychotic behaviour (2). Right arm amputees had phantom phenomena and insomnia significantly more often than left. Nearly one-fifth of the cases were diagnosed as having psychotic depressive reactions, two-fifths as having depressive neurosis and two, both with right upper limb amputations, as schizophrenic.