2. Yes, although I imagine opening up someone's brain in order to place a functionally useless implant in order to test the placebo effect might raise some ethical questions.
I wonder how these things ARE tested, come to think of it. Easy to determine placebo effect with a sugar pill. But when it comes to metal and plastic... anyone know?
1. I do worry about these things - one can only ever do very small studies and of course can't realistically do placebos in these situations.
Unfortunately, it's been shown that the strength of placebo correlates with the level of medical intervention - so taking four sugar pills a day is more effective than two, and a saline injection is more effective than pills, because it is a greater intervention.
...So the placebo effect for brain surgery must be pretty damn intense, even if the surgery itself is functionally useless. And of course it is also well known that placebos play a much bigger part in psychological disorders such as lower back pain (most sufferers of this are manifesting their anxiety through nonspecific pain) and of course depression. So whether any medical benefit has really accrued is, I think, questionable - particularly since the quoted remission rate was only 30%.
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aditi
June 23rd
3. Is it so i had never come accrossed about this but how do implaint basically respond with this heartbeat.
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Aditi
Dual Diagnosis
http://www.dual-diagnosis.net
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nicolasmerritt
May 29th
2. Yes, although I imagine opening up someone's brain in order to place a functionally useless implant in order to test the placebo effect might raise some ethical questions.
I wonder how these things ARE tested, come to think of it. Easy to determine placebo effect with a sugar pill. But when it comes to metal and plastic... anyone know?
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lth
May 28th
1. I do worry about these things - one can only ever do very small studies and of course can't realistically do placebos in these situations.
Unfortunately, it's been shown that the strength of placebo correlates with the level of medical intervention - so taking four sugar pills a day is more effective than two, and a saline injection is more effective than pills, because it is a greater intervention.
...So the placebo effect for brain surgery must be pretty damn intense, even if the surgery itself is functionally useless. And of course it is also well known that placebos play a much bigger part in psychological disorders such as lower back pain (most sufferers of this are manifesting their anxiety through nonspecific pain) and of course depression. So whether any medical benefit has really accrued is, I think, questionable - particularly since the quoted remission rate was only 30%.
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