Author : David Peters
Publisher :
Page : 235 pages
File Size : 50,82 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780443060311
As the placebo effect continues to elicit passionate debate, this book tackles issues of the placebo effect in complementary medicine, and is targeted to both the experienced practitioner and the new student.
Author : Dylan Evans
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 20,98 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 9780195220544
Can we really cure ourselves of disease by the power of thought alone? Faith healers and alternative therapists are convinced that we can, but what does science say? Contrary to public perception, orthodox medical opinion is remarkably confident about the healing powers of the mind. For the past fifty years, doctors have been taught that placebos such as sugar pills and water injections can relieve virtually any kind of medical condition. Yet placebos only work if you believe they work, so the medical confidence in the power of the placebo effect has provided scientific legitimacy to popular claims about the healing power of the mind. In this intriguing exploration, Dylan Evans exposes the flaws in the scientific research into the placebo effect and reveals the limits of what can and cannot be cured by thought alone. Drawing on new ideas in immunology and evolutionary biology, Evans proposes a new theory about how placebos work, and asks some searching questions about our concepts of health and disease
Author : Fabrizio Benedetti
Publisher :
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 12,38 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Placebo (Medicine)
ISBN : 9780191724022
This is the first book to critically review the mechanisms of placebo effects across all medical conditions, diseases and therapies. It is the definitive text on the placebo effect, and will be essential for researchers and clinicians in all medical specialties.
Author : John S. Haller, Jr.
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 46,17 MB
Release : 2014-07-08
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 0231537700
Can Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) find common ground? A distinguished historian of medicine, John S. Haller Jr., explores the epistemological foundations of EBM and the challenges these conceptual tools present for both conventional and alternative therapies. As he explores a possible reconciliation between their conflicting approaches, Haller maintains a healthy, scientific skepticism yet finds promise in select complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. Haller elucidates recent research on the placebo effect and shows how a new engagement between EBM and CAM might lead to a more productive medical practice that includes both the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the subjective truth of the physician-patient relationship. Haller's book tours key topics in the standoff between EBM and CAM: how and why the double blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) came to be considered the gold standard in modern medicine; the challenge of postmodern medicine as it counters the positivism of evidence-based medicine; and the politics of modern CAM and the rise of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He conducts an in-depth case study of homeopathy, explaining why it has emerged as a poster-child for CAM, and assesses CAM's popularity despite its poor performance in clinical trials. Haller concludes with hope, showing how new experimental protocols might tease out the evidentiary basis for the placebo effect and establish a foundation for some reconciliation between EBM and CAM.
Author : David A. Jopling
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 19,98 MB
Release : 2008-05-29
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0199239509
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have had to defend themselves from a barrage of criticisms throughout their history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers.
Author : Dean T. Jamison
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 1449 pages
File Size : 11,22 MB
Release : 2006-04-02
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0821361805
Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.
Author : Harald Walach
Publisher : Elsevier Inc. Chapters
Page : 38 pages
File Size : 31,96 MB
Release : 2013-08-28
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0128064269
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is frequently conceptualized as ‘nothing but’ placebo. I will argue, and provide the evidence in this chapter, that, apart from potential specific effects, CAM is a clever way of inducing generic self-healing effects. Jerome D Frank's model serves to conceptualize this. CAM practitioners normally establish good relationships and take time to listen to their patients. They have very elaborate rituals to enact those effects. They demonstrate their prowess and they provide alternative explanatory models that make sense, at least to those patients that consult with them. Most important of all, perhaps, is the fact that nearly all CAM modalities require patients to become active, thus serving as a catalyst to mobilize resources and stimulate the experience of self-efficacy. The latter is debatedly one of the most important nonspecific effects of therapy. Hence, it is misleading to conceptualize CAM effects as nonspecific effects. Rather, it seems to be a way of activating a self-healing response that is very specific in itself, and indeed, more specific than purportedly specific pharmacologic effects.
Author : Arthur K. Shapiro
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 44,55 MB
Release : 2000-10-17
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1421401347
Ranging from antiquity to modern times, this history of the placebo effect is especially timely in light of renewed interest in the mind-body relationship. Until this century, most medications prescribed by physicians were pharmacologically inert, if not harmful. That is, physicians were prescribing placebos or worse without knowing it. In a sense, then, the history of medical treatment until relatively recently is the history of the placebo effect. Based on the authors' lifelong study and clinical research, this is a comprehensive and scholarly examination of the placebo effect. The authors begin by surveying the use of placebos from antiquity to modern times. They also examine the development, use, and validity of the double-blind, controlled clinical trial. And they present their own study of the placebo effect in more than 1000 patients. Demonstrating both the magnitude and the limitations of the placebo effect, the book helps to clarify knotty issues ranging from the evaluation of therapies to the ethics of conducting controlled studies in which patients are deliberately given placebos. With the renewed interest in the mind-body relationship as well as in the role of placebos in new and alternative medical procedures and therapies, the findings of this book are especially timely.
Author : Daniel Callahan
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 13,89 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1589010167
At the center of the debate over complementary and alternative medicine--from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to homeopathy and nutritional supplements--is how to scientifically measure the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Fourteen scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, sociology, and cultural and folklore studies examine that debate, and the clash between growing public support and the often hostile stance of clinicians and medical researchers. Proponents and critics have different methodologies and standards of evidence--raising the question of how much pluralism is acceptable in a medical context--particularly in light of differing worldviews and the struggle to define medicine in the modern world. The contributors address both the methodological problems of assessment and the conflicting cultural perspectives at work in a patient's choice of treatment. Sympathetic to CAM, the contributors nonetheless offer careful critiques of its claims, and suggest a variety of ways it can be taken seriously, yet subject to careful scrutiny.
Author : Franklin G. Miller
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 31,40 MB
Release : 2013-08-14
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 142140866X
A thorough collection of classic and contemporary resources about the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a fascinating but elusive phenomena. Although no standard definition of the placebo effect exists, it is generally understood as consisting of responses of individuals to the psychosocial context of medical treatments or clinical encounters, as distinct from specific physiological effects of medical interventions. The Placebo is the first book to compile a selection of classic and contemporary published articles on the topic. Systematic investigation of the placebo effect emerged in the 1950s in response to the development of randomized controlled clinical trials that used “inert” placebo interventions as a pivotal element of scientific evaluation of novel drugs. In recent years, scientific and scholarly investigation of the placebo effect has increased dramatically, reflecting a growing interest in the connection between mind and body with respect to health, the development of brain imaging techniques, dissatisfaction with the reductionist and technological orientation of biomedicine, and growing attention to the use of complementary and alternative medical treatments. The Placebo is organized into three sections: the nature and significance of the placebo effect, experimental studies of the placebo effect, and ethical issues of placebos in research and in clinical practice. This comprehensive sourcebook will be invaluable to investigators and scholars alike.
