Sensory re-education

A programme of graded tactile exercises, begun early or late after nerve repair, that trains the cortex to reinterpret the altered input from a reinnervated hand. First formalised by Dellon, Curtis and Edgerton in 1974; immediate re-education with audio-tactile feedback improved tactile gnosis in a randomised trial, while the evidence for conventional programmes remains limited.

Related terms

• Investigation

  Two-point discrimination

  The smallest distance at which two points touching the skin simultaneously are perceived as separate, tested statically or with the points moving, and used to grade discriminative sensation after nerve repair. Technique is poorly standardised and the cut-offs for excellent, good and poor results vary between authors, so comparisons between series are unreliable.

• Condition

  Cold intolerance

  Abnormal pain, stiffness or discomfort of the hand on exposure to cold after nerve or vascular injury. It affects more than half of patients after median or ulnar nerve repair, correlates with poor sensory recovery, does not diminish with time, and is measured with the Cold Intolerance Symptom Severity (CISS) questionnaire, on which a score above 30 is pathological.

Articles mentioning this term

1. FESSH preparation · 26 September 2026

   Peripheral nerve injury and repair

   Peripheral nerve injury for FESSH candidates: degeneration, Seddon and Sunderland grades, electrodiagnosis, timing, grafts, conduits and nerve transfers.

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