Sendy Gross
The Placebo
Effect
As
I was reading the textbook I came across this concept of the placebo effect. I
found it really interesting that if a person believes he is taking medication,
often times it will work. This happens because as the person takes the placebo,
the belief that the person is taking actual medication can relax the body
leading the person feeling better. The bad thing about this is if, for example,
a person takes a certain type of drug, you wont know if the drug is actually
working, or if the person is just experiencing the placebo effect. This is why
scientists conduct something known as the double-blind procedure. In this
procedure a tester gives one group of people a certain drug, and he gives
another group of people a placebo of that drug. This is called the double-blind
because neither the people being tested nor the tester know which group is
getting the drug and which group is getting the placebo. Using this method we
are able to see if it’s the drug that is working or if it is the placebo.
I also find this concept to be very interesting. And I have found that the placebo effect is useful for things beyond medication. In fact, the placebo effect can be used for medical illnesses or impairments that may involve surgery. This can be tested by performing a sham surgery. This is where the doctor gives the patient anesthesia, but he does not perform a surgery. Then, similar to a medication, the person may then feel like he is better and become more relaxed. I think it would be intriguing to be part of one of these experiments. It's amazing how you can trick yourself into thinking you're cured when nothing has actually affected you the slightest bit!
ReplyDeleteThe placebo effect intrigued me as well. It made me think about how we actually work. I was thinking, if literally nothing can cure an illness, then why do we even need medication? Mrs. Perl mentioned that some companies are thinking about going with only placebos, basically planning on fooling the world. While I'm not so sure that would be an effective way of maintaining health, I still think it would be very cool. The placebo effect is just another example of how complicated and amazing our brain is.
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