It is the effect of these placebos, which bring about an improvement in a patient’s symptoms. However, according to Cara Feinberg, writer of “The Placebo Phenomenon”, the placebo effect has often been referred to as “fake” medicine and “sham treatment”. Even Kaptchuk will agree that “placebos provide relief, they rarely cure” (8). But it is this relief and improvement of symptoms that is often valuable to a patient. For example, placebos cannot shrink a cancerous tumor, but…
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Kinesiology tape (KinTape) is a therapeutic tape without much understanding of its mechanism. KinTape claims to increase cutaneous stimulation, which facilitates motor unit firing, and consequently improves functional performance; however these, benefits could be due to placebo effects. This study investigated the true effects of KinTape by a deceptive, randomized, and controlled trial. Thirty healthy participants performed isokinetic testing of three taping conditions: true facilitative KinTape, sham…
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The Placebo Effect, its Use as a Prescription, and the Effectiveness of Psychoactive Drugs When one thinks of a doctor, words that might come to mind are prestige, hope, knowledge, and trust, among others. Trust is probably the most important of these and what we naturally feel, or at least should feel, in regards to our doctors. People (who are fortunate enough) go to their doctor when they are sick or just not feeling themselves with the confidence that the doctor will make things right again…
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acupuncture a common question I get asked is "isn't acupuncture just placebo?" The short answer is yes and no. I have written this article in response to this question and to examine the placebo effect. I have tried to be as objective as possible but obviously my view is going to be biased as I am studying to become an acupuncturist so I obviously think it is more than placebo. To start with the definition of the placebo effect is "A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce…
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Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) and World Health Organization (WHO), acupuncture has been proven effective in the treatment of numerous medical conditions, ranging from paint problems, to addictions, to emotional disorders. Common conditions that can be treated with acupuncture are back pain, sport injuries, migraines, anxiety, stress, fatigue, weight loss, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, cramping, allergies, common cold, flu, menopause…
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between wakefulness and sleep, which is manifested by either hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, or hypnopompic at the beginning or end of sleep episodes, or cataplexy. Also the disturbance of sleep must not be due to any direct physiological effects of a substance (BehaveNet.) Patients who suffer from this disorder typically present different types of behaviors depending on the symptoms that they have. People who have the symptom cataplexy normally show signs of slurred speech and sometimes…
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business, and as we have seen, with very little benefit beyond the placebo effect and with many dangers, as we have seen. “Equipoise and the ethics of clinical research” “The ethics of clinical research requires equipoise‐‐a state of genuine uncertainty on the part of the clinical investigator regarding the comparative therapeutic merits of each arm in a trial. Should the investigator discover that one treatment is of superior therapeutic merit, he or she is ethically obliged to offer that treatment…
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an experiment and a survey are different research methods. * An experiment is used to test a cause–effect relationship between variables under controlled conditions. For example, an experiment would be used to find out if the variable of anxiety (a possible cause) has an effect on the variable of exam performance. a researcher could conduct an experiment to find out if there is a cause–effect relationship between the different variables. * A variable is any factor that can change (‘vary’)…
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chronic pain conditions: back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, shoulder pain and headache. It is the first systematic review of acupuncture to use individual patient data to conduct a meta-analysis. This method is superior to the usual method of using summary data, and the use of statistical methods that generate more precise results. The study, published in the prestigious Archives of Internal Medicine on September 10th (2012), showed that for each of the four chronic pain conditions the analgesic…
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significantly impact daily functioning and quality of life. Morbidity associated with depression includes impaired social and occupational functioning, decreased productivity, and increased risk of substance abuse and other comorbid psychiatric conditions. Individuals with depression may experience difficulties in maintaining employment, have higher rates of absenteeism and presenteeism, and may struggle with self-care tasks. Furthermore, depression is commonly comorbid with other mental health disorders…
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