Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy

Description: Wheeless' Textbook of Orthopaedics
“RSD” is an imprecisely used term; has been used to describe changes in soft tissue and bone;
- RSD may not involve the sympathetic nervous system and may not be the consequence of a reflex;
- 1995: IASP Consensus Conference: “Complex regional pain syndrome” replaced RSD
- CRPS Type 1: noxious event;
Type 2: nerve injury (causalgia)
- pain/hyperalgesia not limited to single nerve distribution, disproportionate to inciting event
- described as abnormal pain, swelling, vasomotor instability, contracture, and osteoporosis following injury or noxious stimulus.
- CRPS: other names - reflex sympathetic dystrophy, Sudeck’s atrophy, causalgia (minor and major), algodystrophy, shoulder-hand syndrome, post-traumatic pain syndrome, Painful post-traumatic osteoporosis, Transient migratory osteoporosis