Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)

 CRPS:  Did You Know

1. CRPS is more common in women than men with a ratio of 3.5:1.
2. The highest incidence of CRPS occurs in women aged 60-70 years old.
3. CRPS has been previously known by 25 other medical names.
4. Less than 2 percent of health research dollars are invested in pain research.
5. Reported CRPS after Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is reported to be 21 percent at one year (Toms, 2009) with decreasing percentages at years two and three postoperatively. Among ACL reconstruction patients, the numbers appear to be lower, in the range of 4 percent (Reuben, 2004) however some estimates range that up to 13 percent of patients who undergo this procedure will develop CRPS. ​
6. Occasionally, CRPS develops without any known injury (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2013)
7. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS), approximately 2 percent to 5 percent of patients with peripheral nerve injury and approximately 12 percent to 21 percent of patients with partial paralysis (on one side of the body) develop CRPS as a complication.
8. In an online RSDSA/Johns Hopkins School of medicine, individuals with CRPS reported that the syndrome frequently interfered with job (62 percent, disability rate), sleep (96 percent), mobility (86 percent), and self-care (57 percent). Remissions and relapses were both common.
9. In a recent medical history review (one year before CRPS onset), individuals who developed CRPS had more migraine, menstrual cycle-related problems, neuropathies, and asthma than individual without CRPS.
10. RSD was first described in detail in “Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences,” a monograph published in 1872 by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, an innovative Philadelphia physician who was also a popular poet and novelist.